Research
Research Centers

Research centers help serve the department's research, teaching, and outreach efforts. Our department has close collaborations with four research centers.  The first two, Center for Optimization and Statistical Learning, and the Center for Engineering and Health are led by IEMS faculty, while the other two are Northwestern wide initiatives.  These multidisciplinary centers serve as a focal point for research, teaching, and outreach.

Center for Deep Learning

The Center for Deep Learning acts as a resource for companies seeking to establish or improve access to artificial intelligence (AI) by providing technical capacity and expertise, allowing the center’s members to achieve proof of concept or deployment. The center’s faculty seek active engagement toward building robust, comprehensive, and scalable solutions for an end-to-end deep learning training and model-serving architecture.

Center for Optimization & Statistical Learning

The Center for Optimization and Statistical Learning (OSL) provides innovative research to better utilize the growing amounts of data available in our increasingly networked world. Our focus is on enabling technologies in optimization and machine learning, applied to a range of areas including healthcare, energy systems, manufacturing, and more.

Center for Engineering & Health

The Center for Engineering and Health, a member center of the Institute for Public Health and Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, looks to develop methodologies and tools to improve health delivery for better care at our affiliated hospitals and beyond. We are a joint venture of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Center For Engineering Sustainability And Resilience

The scale of environmental and sustainability challenges facing humanity requires new ways of thinking and working across disciplines. The Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience (CESR) convenes diverse thinkers across Northwestern and beyond to accelerate the development of ideas, technologies, and people to attack the massive challenge of environmental degradation.

Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems

The mission of Northwestern's Institute on Complex Systems is to serve as a hub and facilitator for path-breaking and relevant research in the area of complexity science transcending the boundaries of established disciplines.

The institute focuses on the theory of complex systems and network sciences, as well as their application throughout a wide variety of domains. These areas include business, education, engineering, law, medicine, natural science, and social science. The goal is to solve important and practical problems through the use of complexity science, and to actively disseminate the results through scientific publications, education, and corporate development.

Transportation Center

Since 1954, the Northwestern University Transportation Center (NUTC) has been recognized as a leading interdisciplinary education and research institution. It is dedicated to the long-term improvement of domestic and international systems for the movements of materials, people, energy, and information.

NUTC serves industry, government, and the public through its research, through Northwestern's graduate-level degree programs, and through other educational and outreach programs.