Supporting research initiatives focused on the globally relevant themes of climate change, computer security and privacy, cloud computing, and computational cosmology and relativistic astrophysics, the NYUAD Institute has awarded grants to four Abu Dhabi-based research projects. A total of USD 16 million (UAE 58.8 million) will be invested over a five-year period.
"These research projects have been selected based on their promise to contribute significantly to scientific understanding, and for the role they will play in advancing Abu Dhabi as a capital of ideas, research, and education in the 21st century," said Al Bloom, vice chancellor of NYUAD.
Together, the four projects encompass a range of cross-disciplinary subjects, including mathematics, science, engineering, public policy, and information technology. Along with the Institute's three lead-off projects announced last year — The Library of Arabic Literature, The Neurolinguistics Laboratory, and the Center for Technology and Economic Development — they will greatly expand the research and scholarly activities in the capital.
As a research university, an integral component of the learning experience at NYUAD is to provide our students with opportunities to be involved in cutting-edge academic research initiatives, and these projects will help to ensure that we live up to that promise.
In addition to The Center for Prototype Climate Modeling, which will develop innovative approaches in climate forecasting to bridge the divide between academic theory and climate change modeling, the selected projects include The CenteR for Interdisciplinary Studies in Security and Privacy in Abu Dhabi (CRISSP-AD), an organization that will provide seed funds to establish a research center in Abu Dhabi that executes multidisciplinary research in computer security and privacy for both academic investigation and practical applications; The Data Center and Cloud Computing Laboratory, which will provide seed funds to create a data center testbed at NYUAD to facilitate NYUAD and NYU-Poly in joint research and education on modern communication networks and network applications, with a specific focus on data center and cloud computing; and The Center for Computational Physics, which will establish a world-class research center for computational astrophysics and cosmology at NYUAD, specifically using numerical simulations to study both how stars explode and how supermassive black holes are connected to ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. It will also include the creation of a large computer cluster, to be built at the University.