Engineering Laboratory II will house portions of the university’s nationally recognized research programs in chemical engineering and civil and environmental engineering.
A new $25 million engineering building will be dedicated at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on Friday, May 7, at 4:00 p.m. Engineering Laboratory II will house portions of the university’s nationally recognized research programs in chemical engineering and civil and environmental engineering.
The keynote speaker will be Barbara Berke, director of the Massachusetts Department of Business and Technology. Berke previously served as vice president of the Boston Consulting Group, a global strategy consulting firm. UMass Vice President for Economic Development Tom Chmura, UMass Amherst Chancellor John V. Lombardi, and College of Engineering Dean Joseph I. Goldstein will participate in the ceremony, which is open to the public.
Comprising 57,000 square feet, the new facility will enable UMass to expand research and educational opportunities for students and faculty. The state-supported building stands on the north end of campus, forming a quad with Engineering Laboratory and the new Computer Science Building. An extensive set of laboratories and offices is complemented by a 190-seat lecture hall and a 40-seat distance-learning classroom, from which courses will be delivered to industrial students throughout the country.
Chemical engineers take a laboratory invention such as pharmaceuticals, solvents, polymers, or abrasives and turn it into a commercial reality. The research to be conducted in this new building will include use of supercritical fluids for semiconductor devices, use of plant cell cultures to treat certain types of cancer, therapeutic treatment and modeling of malignant tumors, use of soft materials tuned for specific biomedical applications, and combustion research.
Civil and environmental engineers design, build, and maintain much of the physical infrastructure that sustains society and makes economic development possible. Much of their research in the new building will be related to the provision of clean and safe drinking water, the treatment of wastewaters, and the protection of water resources.