With federal funding for an “impossible” idea, UC San Diego’s Walter Munk pioneered wave prediction during World War II — a revelation that helped secure victory at D-Day and launched the science that underpins modern ocean forecasting.
Explore Ridge Walk North Living and Learning Neighborhood, now housing 2,400 students and set to welcome Thurgood Marshall College, the School of Global Policy and Strategy, the Department of Economics and the Glass Center in 2026.
What if the key to faster cancer detection was hiding in a butterfly wing? UC San Diego engineers discovered that if a biopsy sample is placed on top of a butterfly wing, the wing’s nanostructure reflects light just right, revealing the density and arrangement of collagen fibers, making the cancer easier to detect. This breakthrough wouldn’t have been possible without federal funding for science research.
Big data is only as meaningful as the people behind it. That’s the core insight of computational social science — an emerging field in both academia and the business world – where social scientists and coders come together to tackle real-world questions.
Researchers ran earthquake tests, then fire tests on a 10-story building at the UC San Diego shake table. These tests focused on a building made of cold-formed steel, or CFS — a lightweight material made from 60% to 70% recycled steel. Currently, building codes that protect residents’ safety in the United States limit this type of building to 65 feet tall, or six stories, in areas with moderate to high seismic risk. Researchers are asking whether the limit could be increased to 100 feet or 10 stories. And so far, test results point to yes.
To better understand the loss of vision caused by space flight, University of California San Diego researchers used the Expanse system at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) to predict who is most at risk for developing eyesight issues — before liftoff.
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