2001: Founding of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS)
by David Pescovitz
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Video Highlight
Researchers working with the Center for Information Technology
Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) talk about how
CITRIS research can change our world.
Both videos are Windows Media
Short Version (3:15)
Full-Length Version (6:05)
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In 1999, a
profound vision emerged from UC Berkeley's College of Engineering.
It was a decidedly grand challenge: Create a multi-disciplinary
center where researchers could collaboratively develop information
technology to tackle society's biggest problems.
"We need
to re-engineer engineering in the context of today's world,"
one faculty member said at the time."
Driven by Dean
Richard Newton, CITRIS was formally founded on July 1, 2001 by
UC Berkeley, Davis, Merced, and Santa Cruz as one of four California
Institutes of Science and Innovation established by Governor Gray
Davis. Initial funding of $20 million in the 2001-2002 state budget,
combined with corporate and private pledges of more than $170
million, followed shortly after. But even before the money was
pledged, the research had begun.
When Ruzena
Bajcsy, the former Director of Computer Information Science and
Engineering at the National Science Foundation, took her post
as CITRIS's first director in October of 2001, there were
83 participating faculty. Today, there are more than 200 CITRIS
researchers from more than 50 departments across all four campuses.
Groundbreaking for an 80,000 square-foot CITRIS building, including
a new state-of-the-art microelectronics/nanofabrication facility,
is slated to take place in the spring of 2004. Gary Baldwin, who
previously directed the Gigascale Silicon Research Center, is
the CITRIS executive director while Berkeley computer science
professor James Demmel, as the CITRIS chief scientist, helps coordinate
the 150+ research efforts under the CITRIS umbrella.
Corresponding
to the CITRIS proposal and mission statement, the center's
research is divided into seven categories: energy efficiency;
transportation; emergency response and homeland defense; education;
environmental monitoring and management; health care; and social
sciences, humanities, and business. From fighting the state's
energy crisis using CITRIS-developed networks of Smart Dust sensors
to exporting Berkeley's computer science curriculum through
new distance learning technologies to monitoring buildings and
bridges for structural integrity after an earthquake, CITRIS has
become a thriving hub of innovation in just a few short years.
Most recently, CITRIS researchers landed a $1.65 million
grant by the California Energy Commission to develop demand-responsive
"smart" thermostats. This summer, CITRIS researchers collaborated
with the Intel Research Berkeley lab and biologists to deploy a
novel environmental monitoring system on a small island off the
coast of Maine. Meanwhile, the Chicago Fire Department is collaborating
with CITRIS to develop a system of wireless sensors and transceivers
that enable firefighters to navigate more safely through a burning
building.
And that's
just the beginning.
"With
each new milestone," Bajcsy says, "we are laying the
foundation needed to fulfill the goals of our original charter—to
sponsor collaborative information technology research that will
ultimately provide solutions to grand-challenge social and commercial
problems affecting the quality of life of individuals and organizations."
Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society
Lab Notes is published online by the Public Affairs Office of the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. The Lab Notes mission is to illuminate groundbreaking
research underway today at the College of Engineering that will dramatically change our lives tomorrow.
Editor, Director of Public Affairs: Teresa Moore
Writer, Researcher: David Pescovitz
Designer: Michele Foley
Subscribe or send comments to the Engineering Public Affairs Office: lab-notes@coe.berkeley.edu.
© 2003 UC Regents.
Updated 7/31/03.
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