The Centers and Institutes are Presidentially Chartered research, scholarship, and creative activity programs available to students to provide an opportunity to engage in faculty-mentored research. Should you not see a program matching your specific interests, reach out to your department or a faculty member for advice as other programs may be available.
Academic Affairs
The Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs (PBI) at Cal State LA is dedicated to “unleashing the power of participation.” PBI programs motivate young people to be engaged in their communities; raise awareness about timely policy issues; bring public officials closer to their constituents; and support Cal State LA’s mission to serve as an anchor institution for the region. As a university-based center, research informs all PBIs initiatives.
Learn more about PBI
EPIC Program
Our mission is to promote community service learning by creating opportunities for university students to implement classroom theory in real life situations. Through community service, EPIC inspires and enables university students to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens by volunteering in a wide range of agencies serving a broad spectrum of communities throughout the Los Angeles area.
Prison BA Initiative
Launched in 2016 with support from The Opportunity Institute’s Renewing Communities Initiative, President Barack Obama’s Second Chance Pell federal pilot program, and later the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Initiative is the first in California to launch an in-person BA Program, and works in collaboration with the California State Prison in Lancaster and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Project Rebound
Assists formerly incarcerated individuals seeking to enroll at Cal State L.A. with support and serves as a liaison and advocate with campus services and programs as well as with community organizations. Offering resources and connections with supportive entities, Project Rebound endeavors to help students with their basic needs so students concentrate on their studies and achieve educational and personal empowerment.
Visit the Center for Engagement, Service, and the Public Good
College of Arts and Letters
As well as presenting events and events to create, promote and stimulate the full range of poetic voices from our diverse cultural backgrounds and approaches to the genre, the Center for Contemporary Poetry and Poetics serves as a vehicle to bring together scholars, students, poets and the public to establish strong links with the community and other academic and cultural partners through the dynamic vehicle of poetry to serve, as effectively and inventively as possible, our varied and multicultural participants.
Learn More about the Center for Contemporary Poetry and Poetics
Established in 1975 to sponsor Japan-related programs; promote interchange and exchange among scholars, students, and the community; and serve as a resource and information clearinghouse for persons interested in increasing their knowledge and understanding of Japan, the Center for Japanese Studies is intended to be an adjunct of the Japanese program in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.
The Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities is a university-wide, interdisciplinary center housed in the College of Arts and Letters. The Mission of the CSGS is to provide support for scholars, teachers, students, and community partners who investigate gender and sexuality at the intersections of race, class, religion, ability, and nation, in particular work that bridges the diverse communities represented at Cal State LA and its surrounding community. We maintain that empowering and socially relevant knowledge is generated most effectively through close interdisciplinary collaboration among scholars, students, and community members, both on and off campus.
To strengthen and preserve Chinese culture and history, the focus of the Chinese Studies Center is history, culture and the role of cultural Chinese peoples in the United States. The Center is non-political and non-sectarian, and as such, welcomes the participation of all Chinese without regard to their political or religious beliefs as well as all scholars, artists, faculty, students, and community members who share an interest in Chinese studies regardless of their ethnic or cultural origins.
The Institute for Interactive Arts, Research, and Technology (InArt) is home to an interdisciplinary institute--involving the Departments of Film, Television, and Media Studies, Communication Studies, Computer Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Fine Arts, Theatre Arts, Management, Political Science, Pan-African Studies, Department of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies, Theatre Arts, and the Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities--at the California States University, Los Angeles to synthesize and synergize artistic research and critical making concerned with digital narrative and critical game design. Faculty, students, and artists work closely in this concerted action to create new and fresh media content and digital stories: games, experimentations in spatial story design, improv-based theater, 360°narrative, VR experiences, apps, and narrative in social media in the broadest possible sense.
InArt
- serves as a framework for interdisciplinary collaborations as well as a catalyst to fundamentally re-imagine what it means to
share and tell stories in both a cultural and an institutional context - expands the field of interactive media and creates not only new content, and new ways of inclusivity and collaboration, but also new markets, audiences and sustainable counter institutions
- collaborates with the creative industries, with non-for-profit organizations, and the community to develop stories and
application that respond to contradictions and needs of the 21st century
College of Business and Economics
The Asian Pacific Business Institute aims to support and foster cooperative relationships between local business organizations and the College of Business and Economics focusing on Asian Pacific countries and the collection and dissemination of information about research and consulting opportunities; organizing faculty and student exchanges with academic institutes in this region; and internships for business students to expand career opportunities.
The mission of the Center for Entrepreneurship is to inspire and empower the entrepreneurial spirit of Cal State L.A. students, faculty, and alumni to accelerate upward social mobility and deepen the economic impact of innovation within Los Angeles area underserved communities. The Center believes in the power of bold ideas; pride in its ability to help foster those ideas, and the people who create them to thrive.
Established in May 2016 to embrace opportunities and challenges in the developing field, the Center for Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LCSCM) delivers state of the art knowledge in this arena to students, business practitioners as well as community stakeholders, and aims to serve as a prepared source providing interdisciplinary, effective LCSM solutions in metro Los Angeles.
College of Education
Within the Division of Special Educations and Counseling, the Center for Excellence in Early Intervention and Low Incidence Disabilities created a model program focused on training early intervention professionals with the standards of excellence in serving young children with special needs, and youth learners with low incidence disabilities and their families.
Explore the Center for Excellence in Early Intervention and Low Incidence Disabilities
Specific goals and objectives of the Center for Multicultural Education is to provide in-service training for faculty and staff; preservice training to students about issues related to cultural pluralism, diversity and multicultural education. Additionally, the center provides assistance to faculty seeking to infuse a greater degree of multiculturalism into their curriculum.
Visit the Center for Multicultural Education
College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology
The mission of the Sikand Center for Sustainable and Intelligent Infrastructure (Sikand SITI Center) is to support he advancement of multidisciplinary research, education and professional development focusing on urban sustainability.
Xu College of Health and Human Services
Utilizing applied research and interdisciplinary education, the mission of the Applied Gerontology Institute (AGI) is to provide students, professionals, paraprofessionals, and community agency personnel curriculum and applied research focusing on aging; how to reduce health, social and economic disparities in our communities among the older adult population and their families.
The California Forensic Science Institute is committed to the advancement of the forensic sciences through a multidisciplinary program that focuses on research development, professional training, student support, and community engagement. The institute also partners with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, Scientific Services Bureau and the Los Angeles Police Department, Forensic Science Division.
Under the umbrella of the School of Health and Human Services, the Child Abuse and Family Violence Institute promotes effective prevention of and intervention in child abuse and domestic violence by providing interdisciplinary education, training and state-of-the-art resources for students, professionals and the community.
College of Natural and Social Sciences
Established in 1991 as a Cal State Los Angeles presidentially charted program to serve as a campus resource to engage the surrounding Asian and Asian American communities, the Asian and Asian American Institute in the heart of Los Angeles and its proximity to the Pacific Rim, the institute fosters strong relationships with the Asian community in business, educational, cultural, and political institutions locally and overseas in Asia.
Dedicated to serving as a focal point of Korean American and Korean studies in the Los Angeles area, the Center for Korean-American and Korean Studies (CKAKS), originally established in 1979, was to coordinate studies on Korean culture and tradition, to compile data on the Korean-American community and its activities, to systematically analyze and document the achievements and problems of the Korean-American community, and to develop bi-cultural curriculum materials on Koreans and Korean cultural traditions. CKAKS' main objectives have been to promote, coordinate, and conduct research and publication activities related to Korean-American and Korean studies; to sponsor conferences, seminars, symposia and exhibits; and to serve as a cultural resource and research center for the local community.
The mission of the Urban Ecology Center (UEC), housed within Cal State LA’s College of Natural and Social Sciences (NSS), is to support the advancement of transdisciplinary research, education, and professional development with a focus on sustainable, equitable, and fair economic drivers, land use practices, and public policies.