PIES is the UCLA Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Indo-European Studies, leading to the degrees of MA and Ph.D.

The primary focus of the interdisciplinary Indo-European Studies program is the study of the ancient Indo-European languages and of their reconstructed ancestor, Proto-Indo-European, based on methods drawn from comparative-historical, theoretical, and computational linguistics. Goals of this study include the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language, elucidating its subsequent development into the historical Indo-European languages, and showing how data from the archaic Indo-European languages contribute to a theory of language. There is also attention to other aspects of the non-material culture of the speakers of Proto-Indo-European (such as social structure, religious beliefs, mythology, and poetics), and how these are reflected in the textual traditions of the ancient Indo-European languages.