Curiosity about the world and a commitment to solving problems are the passions that drive faculty at the Bren School.
Their research in the information and computer sciences are applicable to many scholarly and scientific fields.
But, our faculty don't do it alone. Students work side-by-side with nationally renowned professors to advance knowledge - and improve lives.
Below is a list of research areas tackled by our faculty.
Artificial Intelligence
Research in AI is concerned with producing machines to automate tasks requiring intelligent behavior. Examples include computer vision, bioinformatics, constraint-based problem solving, text understanding, data mining and smart sensor networks. more »Bio-Medical Informatics / Computational Biology
Involves the use of techniques from applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, and computer science to solve biological problems. Current areas of research at the Bren School include medical information access and knowledge representation for health-care guidelines. more »Computer Graphics / Visualization / Digital Arts
Focuses on the field of visual computing, where one utilizes computers both to generate visual images synthetically and to integrate or alter visual and spatial information sampled from the real world. Current and future research areas include but are not limited to multi resolution modeling, surface reconstruction and image based rendering. more »Computer Systems Design
Develops methods and tools for ensuring the reliability and quality of complex, large-scale software systems. These methods and tools support the development, deployment, maintenance and evolution of complex software systems. more »Computer Vision
Computer vision at UCI focuses on understanding the information processing capabilities of biological visual systems and on developing computational systems for processing visual media. Research spans both theoretical questions of perception and object representation as well as practical applications ranging from automated surveillance to biological image analysis. more »Embedded Computer Systems
Focuses on issues relating to embedded systems, a special-purpose system in which the computer is completely encapsulated by the device it controls. Unlike a general-purpose computer, such as a personal computer, an embedded system performs pre-defined tasks, usually with very specific requirements. more »Environmental Informatics
Humanity is currently facing a range of significant environmental challenges such as global warming, species extinction, pollution, and overpopulation. Informatics tools and techniques can help facilitate responses to these challenges, and assist with planning for future environmental issues. more »
Interactive & Collaborative Technology
Studies the use of computer and information technologies in real-life situations, including their organizational and societal impact. They are particular interested in how computer systems can be made to work more effectively in a range of settings, and how they can be designed to support the needs of individuals and groups. more »Internet Computing
Focuses on the development of the software and hardware technology infrastructure of the Internet. more »Machine Learning and Data Mining
A primary theme of research in this area is that of modeling structure in data. The Bren School collaborates on data analysis projects with specialists from many different disciplines, including medicine, astronomy, neurology, engineering, chemistry, geology, biology, anthropology, physics and atmospheric science. more »Mobile Technology
The Bren School hosts an infrastructure for exploration of research issues related to mobile computing and wireless communication. Researchers are investigating several areas of research related to mobile computing and communication, including data organization and protocols for low power mobile access. more »Network & Distributed Systems
Researchers investigate various issues in the design and analysis of high-speed networks for multimedia applications. They are actively involved in research on computer networks and distributed systems, with the goal of designing, analyzing and implementing communication systems that allow high-speed transport of multimedia information between end-users. more »Cyber-Security and Privacy
The development of secure communication protocols is a critical issue in today's age of pervasive communication and researchers in this area work on issues that include anonymity and authentication in network security, key agreement and digital signatures. more »Scientific Computing
Refers to the application of computers to scientific problems, from astrophysics to zoology. The mode of application can be system modelling, data analysis and mining, or visualization. The focus can be on developing new computational techniques, such as parallel algorithms or new data mining ideas, or on the novel application of existing techniques to new scientific problems. more »Social & Managerial Aspects of Computing
UCI is an internationally recognized center for research on the social and managerial dimensions of computerization, computer-supported cooperative work, and human-computer interaction. more »Software Engineering
Software research at UCI is aimed at creating new software technology and solutions, furthering the information revolution. The central goal of this research is improvement in software development, evolution, deployment, quality, understandability and cost-effectiveness. more »Statistics / Statistical Theory
Researchers at UCI are concerned with developing and studying methods for collecting, analyzing, interpreting and presenting empirical data. Statistical principles and methods are important for addressing questions in public policy, medicine, industry and virtually every branch of science. more »Systems Software
Systems software research at UCI has expanded to include topics such as program restructuring and transformation techniques for parallelization and distribution, compiler-assisted memory management, component-oriented languages and dynamic code optimization. more »Theory
Bren School faculty members have made significant contributions to many topics in this field, including graph algorithms and graph drawing (computing with systems of pairwise interactions between objects such as web page links, protein interactions, or social networks) and computational geometry (computing with planar or spatial data). more »Ubiquitous Computing & Applications
Ubiquitous computing builds upon and unites virtually all of the current research strengths in the Bren School. Researchers are addressing issues such as context-aware computing, whereby mobile computing responds to one's current context. more »Urban Crisis Response
Researchers in this area focus on radically transforming the ability of responding organizations to gather, manage, use, and disseminate information within emergency response networks and to the general public. more »
