SJSU Research Strengths

Student researcher looking into a microscope.

San José State University (SJSU) faculty, staff, and students are making the world a better place through their Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (RSCA). Spartans are partnering with the community and leading efforts to increase our understanding of human health and to deliver equitable healthcare, predict wildfire behavior and mitigate the consequences, creating art that asks audiences to reevaluate the ways in which they interpret their place in the world, and generally solving problems that impact us all. Here we highlight our broad range of some of SJSU research strengths. Please read and then reach out to our faculty and the division of Research and Innovation to explore partnership opportunities that help you achieve your research, scholarship, creative or industry-based goals.

Research Strengths

Leaders and legends meet to discuss sports activism during the launch event for Institute for the Study of Sport, Society and Social Change.

Social Justice and Equity

SJSU’s commitment to community-engagement and community-engaged partnerships drives RSCA that addresses racial justice, environmental justice, and health disparities.

Robotic arm prototypes.

Accelerating Emerging Technology

As the engine of the Silicon Valley workforce, SJSU is leading discoveries in semiconductors, AI and ML, microprocessing, robotics, quantum technology, and more.

Fire burning hills.

Climate Change and Sustainability

Through a life-cycle approach, SJSU researchers are combating the impacts of climate change from wildfire mitigation and recovery to ocean acidification, sustainable aquaculture, species migration and empowering new green energy technologies.

Woman sitting at a desk in front of a laptop.

Human Factors

SJSU researchers lead NASA’s psychological research program to help understand human behavioral impacts on NASA space missions, and use evidence-based methods to train the future teaching workforce to create manufacturing processes and products that work for humans under a range of long- and short-term stressors.

Drawing of a new mode of transportation.

Smart Cities/Smart Living

Preparing the world through innovation, SJSU is focused on creating transportation solutions for the future, leveraging data to solve and visualize the interconnected problems of today’s urban environments and social systems, and creating the protections needed from ever-changing cyber threats. 

Multicolored art piece.

Interpreting the World

SJSU drives examinations of the ethics of technological innovations, leveraging deep humanities to explore linkages between medicine and the human condition, and creating art that asks the audience to question normative assumptions about how the world works.

Researchers in a lab.

Human Health

SJSU researchers are contributing to higher quality of life from bench to bedside with research on new pharmaceuticals, new biomedical devices, community-informed behavioral health interventions and training of a diverse healthcare workforce. 

Professor talking to students.

Centers and Institutes

With over 30 recognized Centers and Institutes spanning every college, SJSU is creating interdisciplinary coalitions that combine research, scholarship and creative activities to address the complex problems of our times.

Student walking by a building.

Extramural Funding Highlights

SJSU faculty are awardees of some of the most prestigious grants and fellowships available from the National Science Foundation to the Ford Foundation.