Stanford University centers and institutes


has many centers and institutes dedicated to the study of various specific topics. These centers and institutes may be within a department, within a school but across departments, an independent laboratory, institute or center reporting directly to the dean of research and outside any school, or semi-independent of the university itself.

Independent laboratories, institutes and centers

These report directly to the vice-provost and dean of research and are outside any school though any faculty involved in them must belong to a department in one of the schools. These include Bio-X and Spectrum in the area of Biological and Life Sciences; Precourt Institute for Energy and Woods Institute for the Environment in the Environmental Sciences area; the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the Center for the Study of Language and Information , Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies , Human-Sciences and Technologies Advance Research Institute, Stanford Center on Longevity, Stanford Humanities Center, and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences; and, for Physical Sciences, the Edward L. Ginzton Laboratory, the Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Photon Ultrafast Laser Science and Engineering, Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, and W. W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory.

Center for the Study of Language and Information

The is an independent research center at Stanford University. Founded in 1983 by philosophers, computer scientists, linguists, and psychologists from Stanford, SRI International, and Xerox PARC, it strives to study all forms of information and improve how humans and computers acquire and process it.
CSLI was initially funded by a US$15 million grant from the System Development Foundation for the Situated Language Project, the name of which reflects the strong influence of the work on situation semantics by philosophers John Perry and Jon Barwise, two of the initial leaders of CSLI. This funding supported operations for the first few years as well as the construction of Cordura Hall. Subsequent funding has come from research grants and from an industrial affiliates program.
CSLI's publications branch, founded and still headed by Dikran Karagueuzian, has grown into an important publisher of work in linguistics and related fields. Researchers associated with CSLI include Ronald Kaplan, Patrick Suppes, Edward N. Zalta, the mathematicians Keith Devlin, and Solomon Feferman, the linguists Ivan Sag and Joan Bresnan, Annie Zaenen, Lauri Karttunen, and psychologists Herb Clark, B. J. Fogg and Clifford Nass.
CSLI houses the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It also housed the Reuters Digital Vision Program.

Directors

  • Jon Barwise 1983–1985
  • John Perry 1985–1986, 1993–1999
  • Thomas Wasow 1986–1987, 2006–2007
  • John Etchemendy 1990–1993
  • David Israel c. 1999–2000
  • Byron Reeves c. 2001–2005
  • Stanley Peters 2008–2013
  • Chris Potts 2013–present

    Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies is a university-wide research and teaching institution at Stanford devoted to understanding international problems, policies, and institutions. The institute produces interdisciplinary scholarly research, engages in outreach to policymakers and public institutions throughout the world, and trains scholars and future leaders on international issues. Its teaching programs include the graduate-level Master of International Policy as well as honors programs in international security and in democracy, development, and the rule of law. The school is a full member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, a group of schools of public policy, public administration, and international studies.
FSI's core and affiliated faculty represent a range of academic backgrounds and perspectives, including medicine, law, engineering, history, political science, economics, and sociology. The faculty's research and teaching focus on a variety of issues, including governance, domestic and international health policy, migration, development, and security. Their work often examines regional dynamics in areas such as Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. FSI faculty conduct research, lead interdisciplinary research programs, educate graduate and undergraduate students, and organize policy outreach that engages Stanford in addressing some of the world's most pressing problems.
The institute is composed of 12 centers and programs, including nine major research centers:
  • Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
  • Center on Food Security and the Environment
  • Stanford Health Policy
  • Center for International Security and Cooperation
  • The Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation
  • The Europe Center
  • The Cyber Policy Center
  • The Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
  • Walter H. Shorenstein Asia–Pacific Research Center

    History

The institute was founded in 1987 following a faculty committee review that concluded Stanford "should be leading the way in International Studies as we do in science and technology", encompassing interdisciplinary teaching, research, public service and administrative functions. It was first called the institute for International Studies, and was created under the direction of former Stanford president Richard Wall Lyman.
The institute was renamed the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in 2005 following a $50 million gift made by Stanford alumni Bradford M. Freeman and Ronald P. Spogli.
The immediate past director of FSI was Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, the former Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and former official in the Obama and Clinton presidential administrations who then served on the California Supreme Court and as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Previous directors include Stanford President Emeritus Gerhard Casper; Coit D. Blacker, who served as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council under National Security Advisor Anthony Lake during the Clinton administration; David Holloway; Walter Falcon; and Stanford President Emeritus Richard Lyman.
FSI appoints faculty and research staff, funds research and scholarly initiatives, directs research projects, and sponsors lectures, policy seminars and conferences. By tradition, FSI undertakes joint faculty appointments with Stanford's seven schools and draws faculty together from the university's academic departments and schools to conduct interdisciplinary research on international issues that transcend academic boundaries.
The institute is home to 40 billeted faculty members – most with joint appointments – and 115 affiliated faculty members with a wide range of academic perspectives.
In addition to its nine centers, the institute sponsors the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies, the Program on Energy & Sustainable Development, the Rural Education Action Program, the Stanford Center at Peking University, and the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education.

Directors

  • 2026-present Colin Kahl
  • 2015–2026 Michael McFaul
  • 2013–2015 Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar
  • 2012–2013 Gerhard Casper
  • 2003–2012 Coit D. Blacker
  • 1998–2003 David Holloway
  • 1991–1998 Walter Falcon
  • 1987–1991 Richard Wall Lyman

    Stanford Humanities Center

Founded in 1980, the Stanford Humanities Center is a multidisciplinary research institute dedicated to advancing knowledge about culture, philosophy, history, and the arts.

History

Since its founding in 1980, the Stanford Humanities Center has been sponsoring advanced research into the historical, philosophical, literary, artistic, and cultural dimensions of the human experience. The Humanities Center's annual fellows, international visitors, research workshops, digital humanities laboratory, and roughly fifty annual public events strengthen the intellectual and creative life of the university, foster innovative and interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching, and enrich our understanding of our common humanity. The humanities support democratic culture by nurturing an informed citizenry and seeking solutions to society's most formidable challenges.

Fellowships

The center offers approximately forty yearlong residential fellowships to Stanford and non-Stanford scholars at different career stages, giving them the opportunity to pursue their research in a supportive intellectual community.

Research Workshops

Each year, Stanford faculty and graduate students create fifteen diverse research workshops to ask new intellectual questions that often challenge disciplinary boundaries. In addition to providing a space for incubating new ideas in a collegial setting, the workshops professionalize graduate students by introducing them to the conventions of academic life.

Manuscript Workshops

Assembling a team of faculty experts from Stanford and other universities, the Manuscript workshops provide critical feedback to junior faculty preparing monographs or other academic manuscripts of similar scope for submission for publication.

Public Lectures

The center brings eminent scholars, public intellectuals, and renowned critics to the Stanford campus for lectures and interdisciplinary conferences that enrich the Stanford community with a lively exchange of ideas. Speakers have included Isabel Allende, Roger Chartier, Stephen Jay Gould, Douglas Hofstadter, Gayatri Spivak, Marilynne Robinson, David Adjaye, David Eggers, and other well-known scholars.