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Congresswoman Lois Capps hands a ceremonial check for $36 million to UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang to represent the amount of federal stimulus funding approved to support research at the university. The congresswoman said the grants will have a lasting impact on the local and regional economy.

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UCSB gets $36m in federal stimulus funds for research

By ERIC LINDBERG — Sept. 29, 2009

Researchers in a wide array of fields at UC Santa Barbara have received a $36 million boost through the federal economic stimulus package that university officials hope will support the local economy, fuel innovation and train the next generation of scientists.

In addition to the 41 grant proposals from UCSB faculty members that have already been approved, officials said 79 other proposals are still in the running for competitive grants through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Praising federal leaders for continuing to back higher education, UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang said the funding will build upon the ongoing research on campus, leading to more patents, more local companies, more local jobs and more tax revenues.

“All of this is yet more evidence of the tremendous impact UCSB has on the local and regional economy,” he said, noting that 90 companies have been formed in the Santa Barbara area by graduates and faculty members, including nine in the past year.

The grants are spread across a broad spectrum of academic topics at the university, from engineering and computer science to geography, psychology and neuroscience.

Congresswoman Lois Capps, who joined Yang and other campus leaders to announce the federal funding yesterday, said the number of grants awarded to UCSB researchers is indicative of the cutting-edge research taking place at the seaside university.

“I so firmly believe we must provide scientists and researchers with the tools and resources they need to innovate and bring us into the 21st century,” she said.

The type of research being funded by the grants will lead to improvements in quality of life, the congresswoman said, in addition to creating new jobs and bringing lasting economic impacts beyond the immediate funding needed for equipment, supplies and student researchers.

“The ripple effect of this kind of funding is difficult to measure and will go on for many years,” Capps said.

Among the 41 approved grants, the largest by far is a $19 million award to the Center on Materials for Energy Efficiency Applications at UCSB — a center that focuses on creating technology to make the best use of energy currently being generated, as well as seeking new sources of energy.

Art Gossard, a professor of materials involved in research at the center, said the funding will support four key areas of exploration: solar panel technology, thermoelectric innovations, efficient lighting, and energy storage and battery improvements.

In addition to paying for necessary equipment and supplies, the five-year grants will bring in postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate students to help 20 faculty members at the center conduct their research.

Gossard, who works on thermoelectric technology, said his area of research is focused on designing increasingly efficient ways to capture electricity generated by heat sources. Thus far, his team has managed to assemble 10-watt arrays.

“What we really want are megawatts, so there is a big challenge there,” he said.

If thermoelectric technology advances significantly, Gossard said it could conceivably lead to a completely redesigned automobile that uses the heat created by burning fuel to power electric motors attached to each wheel — eliminating the need for an engine or transmission.

“That’s not too far-fetched of an idea,” he said.

Another UCSB program that is benefiting from federal funding is the Cal Teach initiative, which seeks to train future teachers in the fields of math and science.

Pierre Wiltzius, dean of science at UCSB, said the $900,000 grant approved through the stimulus package will help 145 future schoolteachers receive credentials in math and science during the next five years.

“They will be touching hundreds of thousands of students and bringing forward the concepts of science and math,” he said.

The funds will specifically be used to provide $10,000 fellowships for candidates pursuing master’s degrees at UCSB’s Gevirtz Graduate School of Education to receive secondary credentials in math and science.

Those teachers, through a condition of receiving the fellowship, will be required to teach for at least two years in schools throughout California that are designated as high need, Wiltzius said.

Other grant proposals that have received funding range from research into environmental changes in the carbon cycle of high arctic ecosystems to a study of the forces at work during the Wenchuan earthquake last year that killed thousands in China. A full list of research projects being funded at UCSB by the stimulus package is available via www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa.

When asked about the funding crisis currently affecting UC campuses throughout the state, Yang said the federal grants will certainly help the university deal with budget cuts, but they are not a solution to the ongoing state budget issues.

Capps also chimed in to note that the role of federal grant funding is not to replace the state’s responsibilities to fund higher education, but added that she is hopeful that the funding will help revive the state economy and lead to restored state funding.

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: 9/29/2009

I'm sure they will be using this for more junkets to wineries.....

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Thanks again Lois : 9/29/2009

For giving away our money that we haven't earned yet.

Realist

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Dollars for Research : 9/29/2009

Not a dime for businesses and jobs. The economy will get a real boost out of this one.

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Look at the Picture : 9/29/2009

If you look at the check in the picture it is signed by Capps so it must be her money that she is giving away and not taxpayers. So maybe I can get some of mine refunded.

Concerned

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UCSB is mafia : 9/29/2009

UCSB, like all UC, is a mafia criminal organization. Its Chancellor and other administrative officers are unaccountable, unelected, unethical and criminal. Outrageously, they have at their disposal an armed mafia thug-police force and libelous propaganda machine accountable to nobody elected. They actively seek to sabotage and destroy those that dare criticize them. Propaganda is the main product of UC that strives continually to criminally con California citizens that they produce anything of significance worth being taxed to pay for. UC is a dinosaur that fails to adapt to the times by utilizing 21st Century communications technology to liberate its student suckers from stultifying stationary bricks and mortar campuses into the very possible stimulating trek around the world while pursuing their degrees at reduced cost and increased enrollment. UCSB faculty and staff have committed treason. There is no university anywhere that has cooperated and participated more in the orchestration of Zionist 9/11 homicides. There is no university better qualified to challenge the sham conclusion of a corrupted 9/11 Commission. No university in the history of the World has more disgracefully failed to fulfill its responsibility to the human species and TRUTH more than UCSB. UCSB is utterly contemptible and its complete destruction is honorably justifiable.

Neil

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money : 9/29/2009

Good for Lois for getting some federal money into her district. Too bad the money wasn't used to reduce student tuition.

king of the world

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Congratulations UCSB ! : 9/29/2009

Administering a university is not easy. Every avenue has to be followed, at the department level as well as College and University levels, to obtain resources to keep faculty and students going. Obtaining stimulus package funds required someone to complete proposals, follow up with the process, make adjustments according to federal requirements and so on. It's a BIG pain in the...but someone has done it and we're grateful. Thanks. UCSB Parent

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