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Ready to knock loose the first chunks of precast concrete from the University Parking Garage, President Knapp is flanked by students from Campaign GW, who lent a hand. From left: Summer Newman, April MacIntyre, Will Rone, Jenna Curtis and Katie Lewis. (Photo by William Atkins)
Science and Engineering Hall Wins ApprovalD.C. Zoning Commission gives final go-ahead for new building; demolition begins.The D.C. Zoning Commission this month gave final approval to GW’s plan to build the Science and Engineering Hall, clearing the way for a “transformational” building that will serve as a launch pad for the university’s broadening research aspirations. “This project is a terrific testament to what GW, the community and the D.C. government can achieve by working together,” said Alicia O’Neil Knight, senior associate vice president for operations, following the zoning commission’s vote on June 13. The new teaching and laboratory facility, which will be located on the site of the University Parking Garage on 22nd and H streets NW, will nearly double the space on campus allotted to several science and engineering disciplines. Earlier in the month, at a ceremony kicking off the demolition of the parking garage, GW President Steven Knapp said the “transformational project that will be on this site will move the university into a new era.” Donning hard hats, Dr. Knapp along with lead donors, students and members of the board of trustees took swings at the garage with sledgehammers, knocking from the exterior the first chunks of precast concrete. Demolition of the parking garage will continue through the summer and into the fall. A formal groundbreaking is planned for this fall, and construction is expected to be completed by late 2014. At the ceremony, Dr. Knapp said there is “no question that we’ve had a pent-up necessity and demand for more space for our scientists and engineers.” The building, he said, “is an essential part of our plan to really move the university forward.” And beyond the university community, the Science and Engineering Hall will be helping to boost “the economic vitality and the health of the District of Columbia,” he said. “The research funding that comes into this building is money that’s going to be spent here.” Plans call for the building to comprise eight stories above grade and six below, four of which will be for parking. The endeavor brings under one roof four departments from the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences and five from the School of Engineering and Applied Science, which currently are spread across a dozen buildings on the Foggy Bottom Campus. The building was designed with an eye toward fostering mixing and collaboration among students and faculty members, within their own disciplines and across the boundary lines. “The answers to the big questions—like the environment and energy—require multidisciplinary approaches,” said Peg Barratt, dean of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, in a recent interview. “The open layout of this new building, with its teaching and research ‘neighborhoods,’ will facilitate and encourage collaboration.” David Dolling, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, has said the mere promise of the building is “having a huge influence, certainly with respect to the quality of the faculty we’re able to recruit now.” That spans well-established researchers, like Elias Balaras—who studies computational fluid dynamics and arrived in January from University of Maryland—to younger faculty members who trained at top engineering schools, such as MIT, Berkeley and Georgia Tech. “I’m absolutely confident that they would not have come here without seeing the future that is projected by the building and this growth,” he said. Building plans also include several highly specialized laboratories, like the three-story-tall high bay; teaching labs that incorporate new methods for hands-on learning; and a variety of sustainable elements that will target silver-level certification from the U.S. Green Building Council on its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. Science and Engineering Hall Stats
Science and Engineering Hall Location 
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From left: Andrew Breest, Hannah Stuart, Micah Foster and Danielle Barsky
SEAS Team Wins Spot in NASA Program; Conducts Experiment in MicrogravityGW graduate Hannah Stuart, B.S. ’11, had many memorable experiences as a student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. But nothing can beat her time as a human ball. “I curled up into a little ball and two of the crewmembers tossed me back and forth,” Ms. Stuart said, smiling broadly. She wasn’t worried about being dropped—she was weightless, and so was everyone else aboard a NASA-contracted aircraft as it flew in parabolic patterns this month above the Gulf of Mexico. It was the culmination of more than six months of work by Ms. Stuart and her team members—GW graduates Micah Foster, B.S. ’11, Andrew Breest, B.S. ’11, and GW seniors Danielle Barsky and Matt Wilkins—who were participating in NASA’s Microgravity University program. The term “microgravity” refers to gravitational forces that are not quite zero, but are very small. Out of more than 60 teams vying for this year’s program—officially called the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program—the GW team was among 14 that were selected. It marked the first time since 1999 that a GW team’s proposal had been chosen, Mr. Foster said. The team’s proposal was to investigate the impact of microgravity on the Plateau-Rayleigh instability principle, which explains why fluids break up into smaller droplets as their streams accelerate to the ground. (Think of a thin stream of water dripping from a kitchen faucet.) Understanding its impact could have implications for production of materials on the International Space Station as well as in fields like pharmaceutical manufacturing. During the 10 days the team spent in Houston at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, members used any available time—when they weren’t in training, in anti-motion-sickness briefings or on tours—to adjust and retest their equipment for the experiment. The plane, which is owned by a company called ZeroG and contracted by NASA, simulates weightlessness by flying a series of approximately 30 parabolic curves. Near the crest of each parabola, passengers experience about 25 seconds of weightlessness. During the 100-minute flight, which includes takeoff and landing, fliers can expect a total of about 13 minutes of weightlessness, Ms. Barsky explained. During that time, teams are expected to run their experiments and gather as much data as possible. Between each microgravity cycle, the students experienced 2 Gs—double the gravitational pull felt on earth. During these times, even lifting an arm was difficult, Ms. Stuart said. The team members said they were grateful for the support—both emotional and monetary—that GW and SEAS provided. “The whole support system here was phenomenal, from the administrators and the staff to the machine shop guys,” said Ms. Stuart. “We have so much gratitude toward our mentors in this project.” This summer, team members will work with mentor Charles Garris, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, to analyze the data collected during their flights, with the hope of eventually publishing it in a peer-reviewed journal. For more details, read the full story on GW Today. 
Vice President for Research Leo Chalupa at Queens College earlier this month.
GW Vice President for Research Awarded Honorary Doctorate from Queens CollegeAt 9 a.m. on June 2, commencement ceremonies began on Queens College’s Jefferson Quadrangle, located at the center of its campus in Flushing, N.Y. As 2,500 degree candidates and about 7,500 guests looked on, Leo Chalupa, vice president for research at GW, was awarded an honorary doctorate of science. Dr. Chalupa earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Queens College. Asked what it felt like to receive such recognition from his alma mater, Dr. Chalupa said he was “surprised, pleased and honored.” Susan A. Rotenberg, chair of the Queens College subcommittee on honorary degrees, called Dr. Chalupa “a world-renowned neuroscientist whose extensive work on the retina and development of the visual system challenged pre-existing dogma.” Queens College President James Muyskens told GW Today that “Dr. Chalupa’s accomplishments reflect much of what we ask of our students—in particular, this year’s graduates,” he said. “As we send our graduates out into today’s world, we ask them to be ever mindful of the college’s motto, ‘We learn so that we may serve,’ something Dr. Chalupa has embodied and upheld throughout his extraordinary career.” For more details, read the full story on GW Today. |
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