Teller's push for an educational institution associated with the LLNL was part of a general movement championed by
Alvin M. Weinberg of
Oak Ridge National Laboratory to use the
United States Department of Energy National Laboratories to educate scientists, since at the time the department employed roughly 10% of the scientists in the United States. to UC Davis instead. There Bainer and
Emil M. Mrak, then
chancellor of UCD, were more receptive to Teller's plan, although some faculty of the College of Engineering were unhappy with the idea of outsiders teaching their students. the department was established in 1963 by Edward Teller on the grounds of the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). It was the first graduate education program associated with one of the national laboratories. The lab at first shared the facilities at Lawrence Livermore, although the students conducted non-classified research. Teller intended the DAS to educate advanced students in nuclear physics and other subjects applicable to defense industries. Its main location, built in 1976, was on the grounds of the LLNL in a building paid for with a matching grant of $1 million from the
Hertz Foundation and thus called Hertz Hall. The Department of Applied Science later became more centered at the UC Davis campus. Many of the department's faculty had joint appointments with LLNL or other national laboratories, so that students in the department had access to facilities in both locations. The UC Davis College of Engineering closed the Department of Applied Science in July 2011 for budgetary reasons after 48 years of operation. ==Notable faculty==