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History

Founded July 1, 2014, the Informatics Research Institute (IRI)  serves as a driver for optimization across three constituent centers: the Center for Business & Information Technologies (CBIT), the National Incident Management Systems and Advanced Technologies (NIMSAT) Institute, and the National Science Foundation Center for Visual and Decision Informatics (CVDI). 

All three centers conduct work in the field of informatics studying the transformation of information for solving problems that impact our society.  IRI also facilitates integration of the centers with the broader academic enterprise on campus.

Centers

Center for Business & Information Technologies (Est. 2003)

The center, founded by Dr. Ramesh Kolluru, vice president for research at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, provides a collaborative entrepreneurial environment where the university, partner universities, the State, and the business community can come together to innovate, create value and make Louisiana a better place to live, work and do business. The center collaborates with the various federal, state, local governmental agencies and organizations.

Recognition

2003:  Recognized by former Governor Mike Foster with the Lantern Award for contributions to economic development in Louisiana

2012:  Awarded the  Innov8 Award in the nonprofit category by the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce for the CajunCodeFest event focusing on health care innovation in Lafayette 

National Incident Management Systems and Advanced Technologies Institute (Est. 2007)

The NIMSAT Institute was conceived based on the experiences of researchers at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, under the leadership of Dr. Ramesh Kolluru, during the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. The Institute provided support to the Louisiana Governor's Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness and Louisiana Economic Development during Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008 and immediately recognized the gaps in technology and public-private partnerships in emergency management. 

Recognition

2010: Established the Louisiana Business Emergency Operations Center as an annex to the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness emergency operations center

2011: Received the prestigious Acadiana Innovation award in nonprofit sector from the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce for it's work with public-private partnerships

2012: Partnered with the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) to publish  the Compendium of Public-Private Partnerships for Emergency Management Handbook

2013: Created The National Center for Public-Private Preparedness in partnership with Safety Management Systems, an Acadian Company, to provide emergency management and training with college credit through the university

National Science Foundation Center for Visual and Decision Informatics (Est. 2012)

Under the leadership of Dr. Ramesh Kolluru, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette partnered with Drexel University to establish the National Science Foundation (NSF)  Center for Visual and Decision Informatics (CVDI). CVDI is the only  Industry/University Cooperative Research Center  in the state of Louisiana. By partnering with industry members, CVDI serves as a research hub in developing visual and decision support tools and techniques to enable decision makers in government and industry to fundamentally improve the way their organizations’ information is interpreted and analyzed.

Recognition

2012: Acknowledged as the first Louisiana university to be designated as a NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center

2015: Joined an elite list of international I/UCRC research sites with Tampere University of Technology in Finland

Goals

  • Accelerate the creation and transfer of knowledge and technology to industry and commercial products.
  • Discover, share and leverage synergies of concepts, technologies and resources needed by industry-relevant Visual and Decision Informatics research.
  • Create future workforce that benefit the local and national economy by educating a diverse body of students on the interdisciplinary field of Visual and Decision Informatics.