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For the past five years, professors at UCLA said they have seen demand for research relating to Sept. 11 dramatically increase, and some have changed their focus accordingly.

Federal funding through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Human and Health Services has increased for research related to Sept. 11, and private funding has increased as well. Private publishers have also proactively requested that professors write books about Sept. 11.

This month the California Office of Homeland Security, California’s liaison to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, awarded the UCLA School of Public Health a $9 million grant for the development of a laboratory that can rapidly process large numbers of biological samples at a time.

In the case of a bioterror emergency, this facility would allow many biological samples to be analyzed quickly. This would enable the government to make critical decisions as soon as possible, according to a UCLA press release.

“State funding will allow UCLA’s School of Public Health to get our lab up and running more quickly and expand our reach,” said Linda Rosenstock, dean of UCLA’s School of Public Health, in a press release.

While federal funding for biodefense research has increased, private funding has also increased.

“I spend much more of my time on biological weapons and disaster preparedness than I did before Sept. 11,” said Peter Katona, associate professor of clinical medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Katona, along with economics and political science professor emeritus Michael Intriligator, is currently working on a study looking at whether the government is spending its money wisely in the fight against terrorism. The study is funded by the Milken Institute, an independent economic think tank.

As a result of the events of Sept. 11, Katona, Intriligator and John Sullivan, a lieutenant for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, have been working on a book about countering terrorism and weapons of mass destruction with a network of global preparedness.

Routledge will publish the book this month in England and has already pitched ideas for two more books dealing with the same topic, Katona said.

While funding has increased for biodefense research, many humanities professors said they have also seen funding increase for research related to Sept. 11 and the Iraq war in their field as well.

“(Sept. 11) has significantly increased the availability of both public and private funds for research,” said Leonard Binder, acting interim director of the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies and a political science professor, in an e-mail.

Other UCLA professors echoed Binder’s thoughts and also said this is a trend at many other U.S. institutions.

James Gelvin, a history professor, said his area of expertise is late 19th and early 20th century Near Eastern studies, but Sept. 11 redirected his research more specifically to politics in the modern Middle East.

“(Sept. 11) hasn’t had an impacted on my basic research focus ... (but) it has turned my attention to other projects,” Gelvin said.

Since Sept. 11, both Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press approached Gelvin to write books about modern Middle Eastern history.

Gelvin said he believes their interest is a direct result of Sept. 11 and the continuing war in Iraq.

Currently Gelvin is conducting research for a book about American policy in the Middle East through a fellowship with the Center for American Politics and Public Policy at UCLA.

Gelvin said the Center for American Politics and Public Policy is being very generous by paying for a research assistant and buying out one of his courses.

“(This fellowship) was particularly a result of the interest in 9/11 and the Iraq war,” he said.

Publishers’ demand for material relating to Sept. 11 has also increased, said Gelvin.

For example, Oxford University Press has requested that Gelvin work on a second edition of one of his books, “The Modern Middle East: A History,” which was published in 2003.

Gelvin said that before Sept. 11 he had no intention of writing books on any of these topics.

David Halle, a sociology professor, said Sept. 11 has directly affected a study he is conducting on the Far West Side of Manhattan in New York.

Halle said he incorporated the site of the World Trade Center into the study because it is part of the Far West Side’s urban politics.

“I doubt that publishers would have been as interested in my study if I had looked at another urban area,” he said.