Explore the engines of our research enterprise

The center translates basic discoveries into novel antimicrobial therapies to help resolve antimicrobial resistance, amid the rise of multidrug resistant pathogens and the threat of genetically engineered bioweapons.

Kim Lewis / University Distinguished Professor of Biology

ALERT, a multi-university Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence, conducts transformational research focused on characterizing, detecting, mitigating, and responding to explosives-related threats.

Michael Silevitch / Robert D. Black Professor and College of Engineering Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

An internationally recognized center for advanced interdisciplinary research and training in analytical chemistry and biotechnology, the institute is a center of excellence in the development and application of technologies for biopharmaceutical characterization and proteomics and systems biology.

Olga Vitek / Professor

The center, known as Gordon-CenSSIS, focuses on revolutionizing the detection of biomedical and environmental objects or conditions that are underground, underwater, or embedded within cells or inside the human body.

Michael Silevitch / Robert D. Black Professor and College of Engineering Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The center focuses on better understanding the sources of inter-group tension and hatred, in order to promote cooperation between and among groups. Our faculty and students develop and evaluate practical interventions for the purpose of reducing harmful forms of violence and conflict throughout society.

Gordana Rabrenovic / Associate Professor of Sociology 

The center designs and implements practical solutions to society’s hardest problems, and develops innovative, participatory, and equitable approaches to solving public problems using new technology.

Beth Simone Noveck / Professor

The center investigates the effects of lifestyle choices and health behaviors on brain activity and effective functioning for individuals across the lifespan–from infants and children to older adults.

Art Kramer / Professor of Pyschology

The center is a community-based organization whose mission is to promote the development of academic community health centers that integrate education, research, and service; to influence and change health professions education; improve healthcare delivery; and to promote health systems change to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health.

Donna Bright

The center’s research focuses on how networks emerge, what they look like, how they evolve, and how they impact our understanding of complex systems.

Albert-László Barabási / Robert Gray Dodge Professor of Network Science and University Distinguished Professor of Physics and Computer Science

The center is Northeastern’s platform for interdisciplinary design research. It’s a space for collaborative research activities and a hub for connecting the actors of the design ecosystem.

Paolo Ciuccarelli / Professor of Design

The center conducts multidisciplinary research aimed at the discovery of new therapeutic medications.

Alexandros Makriyannis / George D. Behrakis Endowed Chair in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology

The center is a leading research hub on how local and foreign firms can leverage emerging markets for the global good.

Ravi Ramamurti / Distinguished Professor of International Business and Strategy

The center promotes interdisciplinary research and education on health policy and healthcare delivery. It frequently collaborates with health plans, hospitals, physician organizations, and other provider organizations within private industry to conduct innovative research studies that can promote the quality, efficiency, and accessibility of healthcare services.

Gary Young / Professor of Strategic Management and Healthcare Systems

The center supports students and researchers interested in public health law, health and human rights, health governance, healthcare financing, drug law, intellectual property, bioethics, healthcare delivery law, and the regulation of our healthcare systems.

Wendy Parmet / Matthews Distinguished University Professor of Law 

The center develops tools and processes that will make it possible for businesses to quickly and efficiently manufacture products.

Ahmed Busnaina / William Lincoln Smith Chair of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

The center’s mission is to substantially increase the representation of women majoring in computing across the United States.

Carla Brodley / Dean of Inclusive Computing and Professor of Computer Sciences

The center’s researchers work on complex biological and material science problems. Its research includes designing computer models for use in the treatment of cardiac dynamics; finding ways to prevent the HIV virus from replicating in cells; developing new technology to analyze nucleic acids and proteins; studying the self-organized mitotic spindle formation in animal cells; and devising computational neuroscience models of memory and attention in the brain.

Alain Karma / Professor of Physics

The center draws on Northeastern’s strengths in the study of international institutions and processes to enhance knowledge of world societies, politics, and cultures. Its work advances interdisciplinary scholarship, programs of study, and transnational linkages, and it coordinates the activities of area studies programs devoted to multiple geographic regions, while emphasizing four thematic concerns that span the globe.

Mai’a Cross / Dean’s Professor of Political Science, International Affairs, and Diplomacy

Through its faculty, the center creates academic research and events that engage with the state of the art of innovation and intellectual property policy. The center studies everything from the legal impact of the latest technology gadgets and their consumer protection concerns to the state of the art in the humanities, sociology, and psychology of creativity and the arts.

The center combines multidisciplinary expertise to develop novel microwave magnetic materials and device solutions for use in microwave electronics and multifunctional integrated circuits. Its goal is to develop leading-edge technologies that operate well beyond current operational limits, especially in the area of radar and other high frequency electromagnetic devices.

Vincent G. Harris / University Distinguished Professor and William Lincoln Smith Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The center’s faculty are developing state-of-the-art cleaning techniques for computer microchips and creating micro-sensors that detect impurities in gases used in building semiconductors.

Ahmed Busnaina / William Lincoln Smith Chair of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

The center works at the intersection of biotechnology and nanomedicine. It conducts intensive research in areas like intracellular drug delivery, experimental cancer immunotherapy, combination therapy of cancer, and novel imaging agents.

Vladimir P. Torchilin / University Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences

The center infuses the law school’s public interest mission into all facets of the student experience, and pilots programs and initiatives that address broader justice issues.

Lucy Williams / Professor of Law

The center studies how mixtures of environmental exposures and other factors affect the health and development of infants and children living in the heavily-contaminated island of Puerto Rico.

Akram Alshawabkeh / George A. Snell Professor of Engineering and University Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

The center is a generative hub for interdisciplinary research, exhibitions, and programming in and through the arts. It promotes interdisciplinary research and community with the arts as a catalyst, through an annual faculty fellowship as well as related programs and symposia.

Juliana Barton / Curator of Gallery360

The center, known as Sport in Society, educates and supports emerging leaders and organizations within sport with the awareness, knowledge and skills to implement innovative and impactful solutions for social change.

Dan Lebowitz

The center provides services to the academic community interested in animal modeling and drug testing to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of central nervous system diseases. Researchers develop proprietary technology and applications in the fields of magnetic resonance imaging, single photon emission computed tomography, positron emission tomography, and x-ray computed tomography to enhance preclinical research programs.

Craig Ferris / Professor of Psychology and Pharmaceutical Sciences

The center’s research focuses on building a more reliable, secure and efficient electric grid transmission system that uses renewable energy sources.

Ali Abur / Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The center supports multidisciplinary research in several strategic focus areas across the university and its Global Resilience Institute. It collaborates with the city of Boston to understand and address persistent public safety problems.

Anthony Braga / Elmer V.H. and Eileen M. Brooks Professor and Distinguished Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice

The center’s mission is to make the criminal justice system more equitable and just for all. Its work aims to provide evidence-based reforms to address these disparities in the system.

Carlos Cuevas / Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Natasha Frost / Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice

The institute is creating cleaner, safer, smarter coastal communities, using environmental sensing, predictive analytics, and other technology tools to reduce threats at the land-sea interface, including sea-level rise, collapsing fisheries, coastal pollution, and gaps in port security. The institute is based at Northeastern’s Marine Science Center on the Nahant, Massachusetts, coastline.

Geoffrey C. Trussell / Professor and Chair, Marine and Environmental Sciences 

Safeguarding critical technology is the mission of Northeastern’s Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute. Forging partnerships with experts in industry, government, and academia worldwide, the Institute’s faculty and students develop, protect, and enhance technologies on which the world relies—from mobile devices and “smart” IoT applications to tomorrow’s self-driving cars and delivery drones.

David Choffnes / Associate Professor of Computer Sciences

The center conducts interdisciplinary research, in collaboration with civic leaders and scholars both within and beyond Northeastern, to identify and implement real solutions to the critical challenges facing urban areas throughout Greater Boston, the state of Massachusetts, and the nation. One particular research focus area is on various aspects of smart growth, including sustainable and equitable public transportation.

Ted Landsmark / Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs

The institute conducts original research in the areas of applied ethics, religious ethics, ethical theory, social and political philosophy, and formal methods in ethics and epistemology. It brings ethical analysis and evaluation to bear on social and environmental issues, as well as to promoting ethical reflection on decisions and challenges in contemporary life.

Ronald Sandler / Professor of Philosophy and Religion

The mission of the Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security is to advance resilience in the face of 21st century risks. The institute will foster collaborative, use-inspired research aimed at expanding the capacity of communities, critical systems, and infrastructure to withstand, respond to, and recover from manmade and natural catastrophes.

Thomas Vaneck / CEO of KRI, LLC

The Global Resilience Institute is committed to informing and advancing societal resilience around the world. Individuals, communities, nations, and the systems they depend upon, can thrive only if they have the means to better withstand, recover from and adapt to the inevitable shocks and disruptive events of the 21st century. Our university-wide Institute is partnering with other leading academic research institutions, nonprofits and the public and private sectors to devise and apply practical, interdisciplinary innovations and solutions to resilience challenges.

Auroop Ganguly / College of Engineering Distinguished Professor and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Daniel Aldrich / Professor of Political Science and Public Policy

Researchers at the institute are pioneering new imaging technologies to reveal, in real time, chemical processes in the brain and body, leading to a deeper understand of how diseases unfold and faster, more precise diagnoses and treatments

James Monaghan / Professor of Biology

The true promise of AI lies at the intersection of humans and intelligent machines, helping each achieve what neither could alone and to transform society for the better. Northeastern’s Institute for Experiential AI advances this human-centered approach, enabling us to design, implement, and scale AI to help people reach greater productivity and creativity at work, lead healthier lives, and build stronger communities.

Usama Fayyad / Professor of the Practice of Computer Sciences

The institute focuses on the development of robots able to learn and adaptively execute autonomous behaviors from human partners and/or other robots. It identifies and studies use-driven research problems at the intersection of collective human-robot experience.

Taskin Padir / Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The institute is devoted to research that improves the health and well-being of the residents of Boston and other urban communities. Researchers focus on exploring social determinants of health in urban settings, the promotion of health equality and the elimination of health disparities. The institute also examines the efficacy of programs and interventions to inform healthcare practices, policies, and training.

Alisa Lincoln / Professor of Health Sciences and Sociology

An interdisciplinary effort between the Khoury College of Computer Sciences and the College of Engineering, the institute develops new methodologies to provide robust and reliable transmission of physically distributed information.

Agnes Chan / Professor Emeritus

The institute develops a deeper understanding of the security threats that face America and other countries in the 21st century.

Glenn Pierce / Principal Research Scientist

Nikos Passas / Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice

The institute pioneers research in wireless systems and networks to make the next generation of internet of things a continuum of connected devices able to interact in new ways with people and the environment—from connected cars and drones, to implantable medical devices and smart communities.

Tommaso Melodia / William Lincoln Smith Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The center is located on Northeastern’s campus in Nahant, Massachusetts, a vibrant center of coastal sustainability research and innovation. Researchers focus on topics related to understanding how the projected impacts of climate change will affect marine habitats, and how urban communities along the coast can best prepare for these impacts.

Geoffrey Trussell / Chair and Doherty Professor of Marine and Environmental Sciences

The institute advances equity through transformative research, advocacy, and learning that opens doors to educational opportunities and leadership advancement. The institute’s research areas include: age as a factor of intersectional analysis, arts and social transformation, embracing technology, global cultures, queer histories, and reproductive justice.

Christie Chung / Professor of Psychology

The institute’s research is focused on developing new materials and devices for nanotechnology, information technology, and biotechnology.

Srinivas Sridhar / University Distinguished Professor of Physics

The Institute is a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary lab space driven by the need to integrate models, theories and problem-solving approaches across disciplines in research and education.

Alessandro Vespignani / Sternberg Family Distinguished University Professor of Physics, Computer Science, and Health Science

The center is at the frontier of science and technology of clean energy conversion and storage. Researchers focus on materials science, advanced in situ spectroscopy, micro-fabrication methods, and manufacturing technology.

Sanjeev Mukerjee / Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology

The center is Northeastern’s hub for digital humanities and computational social science.

Elizabeth Dillon / Distinguished Professor of English

David Lazer / University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Computer Sciences

The Institute seeks to increase the legal field’s understanding of public health and help ensure that legal decisions take into account public health goals.

Richard Daynard / University Distinguished Professor of Law

The center, known as PROTECT, studies exposure to environmental contamination in Puerto Rico and its contribution to adverse pregnancy outcomes, including preterm birth (less than 37 completed weeks of gestation).

Akram Alshawabkeh / George A. Snell Professor of Engineering and University Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Northeastern’s Roux Institute is designed to spur innovation, build talent, and drive economic growth in Portland, the state of Maine, and the Northeast. Partnerships—with industry, academia, and government—set its research and education model apart.

Chris Mallett

The institute conceptualizes, studies, and addresses environmental health problems such as toxic chemicals, climate change, air pollution, biodiversity, and environmental justice requires creative collaborations across disciplines.

Phil Brown / University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Health Sciences

The multi-institutional center, known as SENTRY and funded by the Department of Homeland Security, addresses the challenges of protecting soft targets and crowded places.

Michael Silevitch / Robert D. Black Professor and College of Engineering Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering