Engineering students heading to class this fall semester will be greeted with a glamorous, new surprise as they head toward North Campus.
The UNLV College of Engineering unveiled their newest building, aimed at providing the next chapter of student innovation, the Advanced Engineering Building (AEB).
The 52,000 sq. ft. building will be equipped with a plethora of different spaces and amenities including open concept labs, makerspace, drone aviaries and much more. Students will have access to resources focusing on areas such as biomedical engineering, cybersecurity, machine learning, robotics and transportation.
The building cost $73.6 million to build and is expected to increase engineering enrollment by 30% by 2030. “As many of you know,” said Rama Venkat, Dean of the Howard Hughes College of Engineering, “this project is a decade in the making.”
The opening of the building was held on Friday, with remarks from U.S. Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV), UNLV President Keith Whitfield, NSHE Chair Amy Carvalho and Dean Venkat. The event included a formal ribbon cutting ceremony and a tour of the building’s many facilities.
“The AEB will serve as a hub for cutting-edge research that addresses real world challenges,” said Carvalho, “creating tangible solutions that have the potential to make a meaningful impact on our society.”
Garrett Prentice, an undergraduate computer science student, shared his thoughts on the new building to the crowd. “I’ve learned that education is what you make of it. We can get a degree, but we can also be part of the community.…I can safely say that a space like this [AEB] is necessary for operations.”
A trademark feature of the new space includes a flexible auditorium, ‘Flexatorium,’ that is a first of its kind on campus. The lecture hall can be transformed into an event space, with seating being retractable for larger auditorium space
Flexibility is key, according to Dean Venkat, with the priority of AEB focusing on the “flexible, adaptable, modular spaces that inspire innovation, collaboration and creativity.”
Classes in the new building begin this fall.
