San Diego State University began construction Friday on a $90 million Engineering and Interdisciplinary Sciences Complex.
The 85,000-square-foot facility set between the Physics and Engineering buildings is designed to foster collaboration between engineers, biologists, mathematicians and entrepreneurs.
School officials consider the five-story EIS Complex to be a key piece in their efforts to make SDSU a top-50 public research university.
"Today, we celebrate a beginning — a beginning of greater educational opportunities for our students in engineering and the sciences, a beginning of a campus quadrangle that will be a crossroads of engineering and the sciences on our campus, a beginning of opportunities for even greater collaboration among engineering, the sciences and our entrepreneurship centers — collaborations that will lead to research discoveries and the development of new technologies," SDSU President Elliot Hirshman said.
Among other things, it will house centers for virus and brain imaging research, an institute for developing innovative medical devices and diagnostics, and a center for entrepreneurship.
Research in biomedical engineering, renewable energy and wireless communications will also take place at the EIS Complex.
A quad will be named for former school President Thomas Day.
The facility will enhance the university's teaching and research capacities as well as attract the best and brightest researchers and graduate students, according to SDSU. It will also house an entrepreneurship innovation center for students to team up, dream up, create and market their discoveries.
