SEAS refurbishes several labs over summer vacation

The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has refurbished several laboratories in the engineering buildings, including expanding the Towne Building's Mezzanine Lab. Over the summer, the Engineering School added more powerful personal computers, as well as new furniture and carpet into the Mezzanine Lab. Across the hall, room M70 -- formerly an administrative office -- was also remodeled and now houses a second computer lab on the mezzanine level of Towne. In the basement of Towne, room 143 -- formerly a computer lab -- has become a modern, computerized Bioengineering Laboratory. Formerly the Bioengineering Lab was located in Hayden Hall. Associate Bioengineering Professor Daniel Bogen said yesterday the new facility is called a "Workstation Library for Bioengineering." "The idea is that you use the workstation like a library, with everything available at one location," Bogen said. "We're very excited about it." He said students will use the computers to analyze data and do computer simulation. Much of the renovation project was funded by a $100,000 grant from The National Science Foundation and a matching contribution by General Motors, Bogen said. "[The lab] is probably worth about half a million dollars," Bogen added. Peter Trinh, a 1992 bioengineering graduate who helped set up the new lab, said the facility was sorely needed to replace the old facilities in Hayden Hall. "When we did labs [in Hayden Hall], stuff would fall from the ceilings into the solutions," Trinh said. "It was pretty bad up there." The lab will be open to all Engineering students Sunday through Thursday evenings. Upstairs, in the Towne Library, renovations begun last fall are nearly completed, Engineering Librarian Gretchen Sneff said yesterday. New tables, study carrels, lounge furniture and lights have made the library a more comfortable place to work, Sneff said. She added that students have been pleased with the Macintosh computer lab that opened in the library last spring. Also, a $20,000 gift from Aravind Joshi, a computer and cognitive science professor, has "made a big difference in the collection in those areas," Sneff said. The year-long library renovations totalled more than $125,000 and were funded by the Engineering school and the Penn Library System, Sneff said. Two classrooms on the third floor of Towne have also been renovated with new desks, chairs and carpet. In the Moore School, a new Distributed Systems Lab opened this semester, while room 108 has become a SPARC lab with a dozen workstations. New ergonomic furniture replaced the dirty, old chairs and tables. The new workstations were partially funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, an Engineering official said.

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