The Nanotechnology Fabrication Center:

Nicknamed "the Clean Room," the center will provide "an extremely sterile environment" where researchers can work with materials that are so small they cannot be seen with microscopes. The $4.5 million center was designed for researchers who deal with electronic materials and devices that are very sensitive to dust particles and other impurities. Construction of the 6,876-square-foot center began Feb. 10, 2010, and should be completed in September 2011. The installation of equipment is under way and will continue into fall 2011. It will be managed by the University's NanoMaterials Integration Laboratory (NanoMIL). To this point, NanoMIL researchers have used a smaller "clean" lab in the Geological Sciences Building.

Biomedical/Bioinformatics Annex:

Researchers will use wet and dry labs in this 7,000-square-foot center in the Physical Sciences Building to study biomaterials and tissue engineering, bioinformatics and health care delivery in low resource settings. Other space will be delegated to faculty to expand their research programs and to attract new faculty for biomedical engineering and bioinformatics programs. It is part of a $22 million multi-faceted project that started in January 2010 and should be completed by December

The Center for Space Exploration and
This lab is an outgrowth of the University's Combustion and Propulsion Research Lab. It will grow from 3,500 square feet on the first floor of the Engineering Building into an 11,000 square-foot, world-class research facility on the first and second floors. The focus of the research will be rocket propulsion and energy engineering, including clean, alternative fuels. It is part of a $22 million multi-faceted project that started in January 2010. Two construction phases are complete and the final phase should be finished by December 2011.

Research and Academic Data Center:

The center will be in a one-story "saddle" built on top of the existing sky bridge connecting the Classroom and Engineering Buildings. It will house the University's high-performance computing equipment that research faculty use to perform high-capacity computing. The center needed the new space after it reached its capacity in its current location, in the basement of Union Building West. The additional space will allow for more research computing equipment. It is part of a $22 million multi-faceted project that started in January 2010 and should be completed by December 2011.

The W.M. Keck Center for 3-D Innovation:

The center will double its area to about 12,000 square feet on the first floor of the Engineering Building. The new multidisciplinary lab – tentatively called the Structural and Printed Emerging-technologies Center (SPEC), will showcase future generations of electronic devices that produce rapid manufacturing opportunities. It will include labs for optics, lasers, metrology and electronics. It is part of a $22 million multi-faceted project that started in January 2010. The expansion is complete and other renovations should be finished by November 2011.

The Engineering Design Studio:

At 3,165 square feet, the studio is one of the University's smaller projects. The basement of the College of Engineering was renovated for the studio. Work was completed in October 2010. The studio's purpose is to allow faculty and students to put theory into practice. They will work on complex real-world projects from design through manufacturing. It is part of a $22 million multi-faceted project that started in January 2010.

College of Health Sciences/School of Nursing Building:

This $60 million, 130,000-square-foot building includes classrooms, research space and practice labs filled with cutting-edge equipment. The key component will be a 16,000-square-foot clinical learning center where students can train on interactive patient mannequins. The building, on Wiggins Road, opened in July 2011, about 32 months after ground was broken.