About the Center for Insect Science
The Center for Insect Science (CIS) is a Division of the Arizona Research Laboratories at the University of Arizona, Tucson. The Center was founded in 1989 when it received one of the three original National Science Foundation Biological Centers Awards. The Center is an administrative "umbrella" entity whose role is to foster collaborative research and education across topics relevant to integrative biology and areas of biomedicine and biotechnology that employ insects and other arthropods as model systems or investigate their medical impact. It is recognized that insects provide outstanding training research and training opportunities at all levels, from undergraduate to postdoctoral training and career development.
The Center's members are drawn from Arizona's three Universities: Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff; Arizona State University, in Tempe; and the University of Arizona in Tucson, where the CIS Administration is located. CIS currently has formal international agreements in place with the University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany; Université François Rabelais de Tours, Tours, France; University of Southampton, Southampton, England; and Wenzhou Medical College, Zhejiang, China. These agreements allow for scholar exchange, collaboration and training.
The Center currently has over 130 member Faculty from over 15 Departments. Increasing emphasis is placed on fostering interdisciplinary collaboration. This is reflected by CIS Faculty, who represent many diverse areas of research. These include electrical and computer engineering; mechanical; aeronautical engineering; human physiology; neuroscience; molecular, cellular, and developmental biology; evolutionary biology and ecology, as well as the more traditional entomological sciences. The Center's Scientific Members are predominantly funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the US Department of Agriculture. The research interests of Scientific Members of the Center may be found via the People page.
While not an academic department,
the Center has a history of providing
the infrastructure for professional
training programs. These include
the NIH-funded IRACDA program "Postdoctoral
Excellence in Research and Teaching"
(PERT) and the Interdisciplinary
Graduate Program in Insect Science.
CIS is also actively involved in
outreach to local schools and community
colleges. The Center hosts regular
scientific meetings (Hexapodia),
invited guest speakers, distinguished
scientists, and the triannual International
Symposia on Molecular Insect Science.
Regents Professor Director |
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