The Center for Energy Science and Technology Advanced Research (CESTAR) is an interdepartmental research center whose mission is to provide a common focal point for collaboration and synergism among researchers at UCLA involved in energy related research. CESTAR helps enable energy research at UCLA to become larger than the sum of its part, promoting researcher teaming, expertise and equipment sharing, information exchange, invited energy research seminars. CESTAR also provides a point of contact for people outside UCLA who are interested to find information on what energy-related research is being conducted at UCLA.
Currently CESTAR is organized around 4 specific energy thrust areas:
CESTAR is currently headed by Professor Mohamed Abdou of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department and is made up of faculty, staff and students from many of the academic departments in UCLA-SEAS.