Dean's Message - October 2009
Dear Friends of Engineering,
It's been a busy season. In the last two weeks on campus we've dedicated the new Lamborghini Lab for Advanced Composite Structures, presented a lecture by space tourist Charles Simonyi and hosted the vice-president of Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University. Not to mention the start of fall classes.
But for the College as a whole, I'm most excited that last Friday we broke ground on a new Molecular Engineering building. This was part of my vision for the College of Engineering before I arrived in 2006, and I am thrilled to see it become a reality.
Architects' rendition of the molecular engineering building. Construction is now underway.
The building will help define a new entrance to campus and will be the largest low-vibration, low-electromagnetic interference lab space on the West Coast. The design includes natural ventilation in the office space and a partial green roof, and we are aiming for a LEED silver or higher environmental rating.
One of the few pieces of good news with the economy going south is that the cost of construction has decreased, and the first bids have been encouraging. The total project cost is now estimated at $78 million. We’re also very bullish that over the next two years we can find the remaining funds so that all the interior space will be built out when the building opens in 2012.
Unlike most university facilities, the MolE building will not be owned by departments or colleges. Rather, a new UW Institute for Molecular Engineering & Science will oversee the facility. The facility will bring faculty and students together for large-scale programs which have a translational focus. It will make the UW competitive for large federal grants and it will allow faculty and students to work on molecular solutions to some of society’s most pressing problems.
Molecular engineering will be central to complex societal problems in energy, health care, communications, and computation. It’s going to be as core to new technologies in this century as mechanical, electrical, chemical, and materials engineering are to technologies developed in the last century. In the short term at UW, major programs will help develop the tools for renewable energy systems and molecular medicine. These applications have been identified for almost 30 years and the work done in molecular engineering at UW should finally help deliver on the promise.
Thank you for reading this issue of Washington Engineer.
Matt O'Donnell
Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of Engineering
