The National Science Foundation recently awarded UC Santa Barbara a $17.3 million federal research grant — the largest in UCSB history — to support research in astrophysics and promote the emergent fields of biophysics and mathematical physics.

The grant will help fund the Institute for Theoretical Physics (ITP), an international research center that brings together leading scientists to pursue research on the most challenging questions in physics and related sciences. The ITP has been a model for other research centers, such as the Isaac Newton Institute at Cambridge University in England and the Mathematical Science Research Institute at UC Berkeley.

In addition to funding visiting scholars and graduate fellows, the ITP undertakes many outreach activities, such as a popular public lecture series and an annual educational forum for high school physics teachers nationwide. In May, ITP will host a conference for high school science teachers, "String Theory: Is it the Theory of Everything? What are the Building Blocks of the Universe?" on May 5, 2001.

For more information about ITP or the conference, contact Dorene Iverson at (805) 893-3178 or visit the ITP Web site.