AIRE oversees nine academic research centers, six dedicated to the humanities and three to the life sciences. In alignment with our mission to foster collaboration, community, and innovation, we provide centralized administrative support for these centers. This includes business operations, event coordination, and other essential organizational functions.

Research Centers in the Humanities

A woman at commencement wearing a cap and gown smiles and raises her hand.
Center Director: Oneka LaBennett

Black Studies Center (BSC)

The USC Black Studies Center fosters, promotes, and disseminates Black studies research, scholarship, teaching, and community engagement.

Center Director: Evgeny Dengub

Center for Languages and Culture (CLC)

The USC Center for Languages and Cultures main mission is to promote language learning at USC.

Center Director:Juan De Lara

Center for Latinx and Latin American Studies (CLLAS)

The Center for Latinx & Latin American Studies is committed to interdisciplinary and transnational collaboration that advance the economic, social, and political well-being of all peoples in the Americas. By connecting with different academic, legal, medical, financial, and social partners.

Art work scene from
Center Director: Jay Rubenstein

Center for Premodern World (CPW)

The Center for the Premodern World at USC creates space and offers resources for the study of cultures and civilizations, beginning with the earliest historical eras up to the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern world. Through seminars and public lectures, CPW brings faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates into dialogue with each other and with national and international communities of scholars and artists.

People sitting in a room with digital images projected onto them
Center Director: Andrew Lakoff

Center for Science, Technology and Public Life (STPL)

The USC Dornsife Center on Science, Technology and Public Life (STPL) generates a unique conversation among humanists, social scientists, and natural scientists about the social and political implications of new developments in science and technology. Through public programming, research, and training, STPL fosters sustained reflection on the possibilities and limits of technological innovation.

Vintage typewriter with prism effect
Center Director: Erin Graff Zivin

Experimental Humanities Lab (EHL)

The Experimental Humanities Lab is a hub for critics, theorists, and practitioners in the arts and humanities who seek to take intellectual and creative risks and move beyond disciplinary boundaries and genres. Bringing together scholars whose research focuses upon experimental arts (literature, music, performance, film, and dance), as well as those who want to experiment with their own writing or creative practices, the Lab facilitates imaginative, indisciplined work.

Research Centers in the Life Sciences

Creek running through mountains
Center Director: Matt Dean

Center for Ecological and Evolutionary Dynamics (CEED)

Illustration of a brain
Center Director: Morteza Dehghani

Center for Computational Language Sciences (CCLS)

The Center for Computational Language Sciences at USC’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences is dedicated to serving as a diverse hub of scholars dedicated to revolutionizing our understanding of language through groundbreaking computational research.

DNA strand
Center Director: Ian Ehrenreich

Center for Synthetic Living Systems (CSLS)

The goal of the center is to nucleate and grow synthetic biology in Dornsife and at USC. Synthetic biology is a discipline at the interface of the life sciences and engineering focused on the design and construction of living systems, both for fundamental research and real-world applications that benefit society.