University of Hawaii at Hilo

Overview

University of Hawaii at Hilo

University of Hawaii at Hilo (UH Hilo) is a public university in Hilo, Hawaii. It was founded in 1941 as the Hawaiʻi Vocational College (Hawaiʻi College) and achieved university status and its current name in 1970. A member institution of the University of Hawaii system, UH Hilo is a leading public liberal arts and science university and is known as one of the most diverse national universities in the U.S.

University of Hawaii at Hilo Key Statistics

The university comprises six colleges, including the Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language, Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy, and the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management. It offers over 85 academic courses, including 38 bachelor’s, eight master’s, and four Ph.D. programs.

University of Hawaii at Hilo's student population is approximately 3,500, with 2,671 undergraduates and 494 postgraduate and doctoral candidates. It has a 13:1 student-to-faculty ratio. It employs 226 full-time and 47 part-time teaching personnel in its several campus locations. These include the Main Campus, the University Village Phase I, the Panaʻewa Farm, and the UH Hilo Science and Technology Parks in Makai and Mauka.

Other University of Hawaii at Hilo key statistics include its university library. The Edwin H. Mookini Library houses numerous resources, including the general collection, government documents, and the Hawaiian collection. It also offers access to millions of primary sources via Wiley Digital Archives.

University of Hawaii at Hilo Research

University of Hawaii at Hilo is classified as a “Master's College and University” with smaller academic and research programs. An emerging R&D institution, its research activities follow the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative. Research grants are provided by the UH Hilo Research Relations Fund and various private, public, and international funding agencies.

The top fields of University of Hawaii at Hilo research are physics, astrophysics, and biology. Its research outputs have been published in prestigious journals like The Astrophysical Journal, arXiv: Astrophysics, and arXiv: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics.

Its researchers have attended major scholarly conferences, such as HICSS: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, SIGCSE: Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, and SERVICES: World Congress on Services.

The most cited University of Hawaii at Hilo research publication is Eriksen et al.'s (2014) “Plastic pollution in the world's oceans: More than 5 trillion plastic pieces weighing over 250,000 tons afloat at sea.” This article on environmental degradation was published in PLOS One and has received 2,735 citations to date.

The university’s second most cited publication is Pickles’s (1998) “A stellar spectral flux library: 1150-25000 A,” which appeared in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and has been cited 2,181 times.

Moreover, the university’s third most cited publication is Takahashi’s (1978) “Riming electrification as a charge generation mechanism in thunderstorms,” which was featured in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences and currently has 1,057 citations.

In addition, UH Hilo houses several research facilities. These include the Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Sciences unit and various department-based laboratories. It is also home to the Agricultural Farm Laboratory, a 110-acre farm for research and teaching, Spatial Data Analysis & Visualization Labs, and the Geoarchaeology Laboratory.

You can also learn more about the educational performance of University of Hawaii at Hilo in our ranking of US universities & colleges.