More than 100 Celebrated Completion of New ElectroScience Lab Building
More than 100 alumni, officials, distinguished guests and Ohio State faculty, staff and students celebrated the ribbon cutting of the new Wireless Communication/Radio Frequency Research Building on Friday, September 30, 2011.
Remarks at the ceremony were made by: Robert Lee, chair, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering; David Williams, dean, College of Engineering; John Volakis, director, ElectroScience Laboratory; Nathan Smith, graduate research associate, ElectroScience Lab; and E. Gordon Gee, president, The Ohio State University.
“We are pleased to celebrate this beautiful new building—which provides critically-needed space and modern facilities—among friends,” Lee said. “Friends like SciTech, who partnered with us to develop this innovative building; and our distinguished alumni, many of whom have traveled from across the country to be here with us today. I hope you will feel just as at home in this new building, as you have in our previous facility.”
The new building houses the faculty, researchers, students and staff of the ElectroScience Laboratory. It also connects to and complements the existing Ohio State University ElectroScience Laboratory as the experimental facilities remain in the original building.
“The electromagnetics classes offered here, as well as the research the ElectroScience Lab does is inarguably the best in the world in this field,” said Smith. “I really think this building reflects the academic research and excellence that is done here.”
The new space is uniquely designed to promote and support research partnerships with established and start-up companies. It accomplishes this by hosting industrial partners that can benefit from access to world-renowned researchers, specialized facilities and innovations in wireless sensors, radio frequency identification (RFIDs), biomedical sensing, RF materials engineering, radars, microwave and THz imaging, optics and wireless communications.
“With ESL’s recent funding awards and investments in the areas of terahertz, sensors, and biomedical research and the added ability of this new building to accommodate companies who wish to work with us under the same roof, this lab is well-positioned to stay right on the cutting-edge,” said Dean Williams.
A reception was held inside the ElectroScience Laboratory following the ceremony. Students, faculty and researchers gave tours of the new building and ESL's research facilities.
The Ohio State University partnered with the Science and Technology Campus Corporation (SciTech), a university-affiliated developer to construct this innovative 40,580-square-foot facility. Ohio Third Frontier funds (nearly $5M) obtained via the IDCAST program led by Larrell Walters at the University of Dayton were critical to the realization of this new building that builds on established excellence on RF sensing at Ohio State. Alumni donations and the Ohio State College of Engineering provided the remaining funds to construct this $7.3 million project.
Photos of the event are available via ESL's flickr photostream. A video of the entire ribbon cutting ceremony is also available on YouTube.
