A HOME FOR RESEARCH PARTNERSHIPS New campus building reconfigures interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle some of the future’s most complex issues
By Rosemary McClure
Photos by Steve Zylius
T
he great challenges of the 21st century – such as curing devastating diseases and solving the world’s looming climate catastrophes – will not be overcome by solitary thinkers. Cataclysmic problems, experts say, will be solved by the collaboration of teams that include engineers, biologists, mathematicians, climate scientists and others from diverse fields of study. Interdisciplinary research is the future, and UCI – long at the cutting edge of this synergistic approach – has just taken a huge step forward with the completion of the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building. The six-story edifice, which offers researchers more than 140,000 square feet of new laboratory and office space, was funded by the Samueli Foundation, combined with resources from the University of California Office of the President and UCI. Most occupants are from the School of Physical Sciences, The Henry Samueli School of Engineering and the Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences, although faculty and students from other UCI schools will make use of the building too. “Global problems such as climate change require a global approach,” explains physical sciences dean James Bullock. “While physical science is essential for understanding climate change and inventing realistic clean-energy solutions, translating these aspects to the world cannot be done without engineering and computer science. All three schools bring world-class expertise to this issue. Bringing them together is going to yield something special.”
Winter 2021
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