University of Alabama at Birmingham

The University of Alabama at Birmingham, usually shortened to UAB, is a public research university in the Southside neighborhood of downtown Birmingham, Alabama, in the United States. It began in 1936 as a Birmingham Extension Center of the University of Alabama, grew when the School of Medicine moved to the city in 1945, and became a university in its own right in the late 1960s. In 1969 it became one of three four-year institutions in the new University of Alabama System, with Joseph Volker as its first president. It offers 140 programs of study in 12 academic divisions and is classified among the R1 doctoral universities with very high research activity.