After the demolition of Burges and Barry Halls, it is unknown when construction of the new interdisciplinary research facilities will begin. The demolition began on June 22 and will be finished this upcoming August.

According to Associate Vice President for Business Affairs Greg McNicol, this new building will be the essential block in UTEP’s strategic plan to expand the research infrastructure required to recruit and retain top-tier faculty members and their research teams.

The Texas legislature this spring approved $70 million for the budget of this new interdisciplinary research facility. However UTEP officials said that details about the budget and design plans were not yet final.

Materials science and engineering researcher and doctoral student Heber Martinez said that he was not aware of the new interdisciplinary research facilities UTEP was constructing.

Martinez said that he hopes the new research labs will give students more freedom to conduct research and that it will allow all science students to participate.

“This would be especially helpful for the MASE program since they would get a more complete preparation by learning more techniques and the use of machines typical of each discipline,” Martinez said.

Since the current interdisciplinary labs lack access hours for students, Martinez said the new ones would have to be a lot more accessible.

Metallurgical engineering graduate student Craig Guerrero said that the current labs lack space and that the purchasing of new electronics for the labs will be a great idea.

Post-doctoral physics researcher Luis Basurto said the new labs would be helpful to everyone in interdisciplinary sciences such as chemistry, biology and materials engineering.

“For us here at the electronic structure lab, the most important would be that the new labs are equipped with more computer nodes, which are essential for doing molecule tests,” Basurto said.

Juan Raygoza may be reached at theprospectornews.gmail.com.