At UC Santa Barbara, we aim to inspire scholarly ambition, creativity, and discoveries with wide-ranging impacts across disciplines and industries.

UC Santa Barbara is a hub of excellence.

We enroll nearly 3,000 graduate students from 45 countries across the globe. In the humanities, the arts, the social sciences, education, engineering, and the sciences, our graduate students discover novel ways of thinking, learning, teaching, and conducting research.

Learn more about our exciting academic community

Our students thrive in an inspiring location.

Located on 1,000 acres along the California coast, our campus is 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles, nestled between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.

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Find research mentors among our distinguished faculty.

Our faculty includes six Nobel Prize winners, elected members of national and international academies and societies, winners of Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, and recipients of other highly acclaimed awards.

Learn more about our esteemed UCSB faculty

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Receive a world-class education at an elite research university. In its annual ranking of leading graduate and professional programs at American universities, U.S. News & World Report magazine has rated two of UC Santa Barbara’s programs among the top 10 in the nation.

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A Top Public University

 UCSB is one of only 62 research-intensive institutions elected to membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities.

Learn more about our University rankings

National Institutes and Research Centers

Our campus is home to 10 national institutes and centers. Among them are the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Materials Research Laboratory, both funded by the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Army-funded Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies.

Learn more about our research centers

Cutting-Edge Scholarship

UCSB is home to groundbreaking research initiatives and groups like the nation’s first NSF-funded Quantum Foundry and the Koegel Autism Center at the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, which has been recognized as one of the top 10 state-of-the-art treatment centers for autism in the United States.

Find out more about campus centers and projects

Graduate students can pursue interdisciplinary emphases in 16 different areas. Doctoral candidates can participate in year-long interdisciplinary and classroom teaching experiences through the UCSB Crossroads Program. The campus also fosters interdisciplinary research initiatives and programs at the Institute for Energy Efficiency and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.

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Dr. James Allen

Foster Research Possibilities

“I’ve been really lucky to be able to have so many different opportunities here at UCSB. I’d really like to see these experiences happen to as many people as possible. It’s really great to see all of these different grad students come together and make something great.”

Dr. James Allen

Ph.D. `19, Marine Sciences
Researcher, Earth Research Institute
Crew Member, Research Vessel Sally Ride

The UCSB Graduate Division acknowledges the traditional custodians of this place and all land upon which the UC Santa Barbara campus is located, and pay our respects to the Chumash Elders past, present, and future for they hold the memories, the traditions, and the culture of this area, which has become a place of learning for people from all over the world. Please click here to listen to the 2021 Commencement land acknowledgment recording.