After reaching its minimum goal of $10 million, UH has scheduled the groundbreaking ceremony for its new $51 million Multidisciplinary Research and Engineering Building, set to open in 2016.
At the ceremony, UH President and Chancellor Renu Khator, Research and Technology Transfer Vice President Rathindra Bose and Cullen College of Engineering Dean Joseph Tedesco are scheduled to speak. A reception in the Engineering 1 building will immediately follow.
Faculty said they believe the new MREB building will attract and promote multidisciplinary research and exploration of new methods of research in energy and health care. The new four-story, 120,000 square-foot building is complete with top-notch research labs, visualization lab, NMR spectrometer lab, computational training facilities and a high performance computational server room.
“It will enhance our ability to house our researchers in state-of-the-art laboratory facilities, and it will help us attract top faculty and graduate students,” Bose said in a press release.
The MREB will give both the Cullen College of Engineering and the Division of Research more lab space to be able to collaborate with other researchers from across campus. With the new facility, the college hopes to increase its annual expenditures to $36 million.
Cullen College of Engineering Student Government Senator Tanzeem Chowdhury said he was excited about the groundbreaking ceremony and the new addition to the college.
“It will add more visibility to the Cullen College of Engineering because it will be a research-based building, which will provide that ‘Tier One’ facility,” Chowdbury said. “Both faculty and students alike are looking forward to it.”
The groundbreaking ceremony will take place at 10 a.m. Oct. 6 between the Cullen College of Engineering and Calhoun Lofts. The following reception will accommodate up to 200 attendees.
Nobody schedules groundbreaking like College of Engineering.