Dean's Message

The Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz offers unique opportunities for frontiering, innovative education, and research. The Baskin School was founded in 1997 to meet the increasing demand for highly educated engineering graduates. Now, after ten years, the Baskin School has grown beyond expectations and has won praise from industry and government leaders as the “engineering school of the 21st century.” Since its inception, we have tripled our number of stellar faculty and increased our student body to over 1,000 students. We now offer undergraduate degree programs in Bioinformatics, Bioengineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Science: Computer Game Design, Electrical Engineering, and Information Systems Management. The Baskin School also offers MS and PhD degree programs in Bioinformatics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Statistics and Stochastic Modeling. Proposals for graduate programs in Applied Mathematics and Technology Information Management are in progress.

Our faculty are doing exciting and pioneering research in the core areas of biotechnology, information technology, and nanotechnology. Our long-term plan calls for establishing eminence in key areas of bioinformatics and biomolecular engineering; communications, signal and image processing; information technology infrastructure (database, storage, networks, and security); machine learning, human-computer interface, graphics and visualization; optoelectronics and photonic systems; remote sensing and environmental technology; software engineering; global services management and engineering; VLSI and nanosystems including bionanomaterials, nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS); and Bayesian statistics and dynamic mathematical modeling.

The faculty and staff in the Baskin School are dedicated to providing first-rate education that instills strong basic knowledge for sound practice in science and engineering for the well-being of society. We offer diverse curricula that nurtures creative thinking and prepares students for productive and rewarding careers.

Our students have the opportunity to be involved in many aspects of campus life: study abroad, entrepreneurship program, honors program, extracurricular activities, participate in faculty research, and also to take internships in high-tech companies and the Silicon Valley region and elsewhere.

Our 212-seat Baskin Engineering Auditorium and Engineering 2 building with state-of-the-art 150,000 sq. ft. space were completed for occupancy in the summer of 2004. The new Physical Sciences building provides additional space for biomolecular engineering programs and groundbreaking for a new Biomedical Sciences and Engineering building will take place in 2007.

The Baskin School of Engineering boasts three national research centers, namely Engineering Research Center for Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems funded by NSF, ONR MURI Thermionic Energy Conversion Center, Army MURI (Dynamic Ad-hoc wireless Network (DAWN). In addition, we host two California Institutes for Science and Innovation, namely QB3 (Quantitative Biomedical Research Institute) and CITRIS (Center for IT Research in the Interest of Society). We also host Los Alamos National Laboratory sponsored Institute for Scalable Scientific Data Management. These programs provide research opportunities and deepen learning experiences of our students.

This is an exciting time to be a student at the Baskin School of Engineering as we continue to grow and enhance our programs to national eminence. I encourage students to fully embrace and take full advantage of the rich learning environment available at UC Santa Cruz. For supporters and potential collaborators in industry, federal laboratories, and elsewhere, I enthusiastically welcome your interest in the Baskin School of Engineering. Please do not hesitate to contact me or any of our faculty members to pursue opportunities for collaborations.

Michael S. Isaacson, Acting Dean and Narinder Singh Kapany Professor