CITRIS Groundbreaking Ceremony

October 29, 2004
With ceremonial tosses of dirt on a sunny October afternoon, College and University leaders kicked off construction of the new headquarters building for CITRIS, the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society.

About 300 faculty, students, and alumni, as well as campus, community, and state leaders attended the groundbreaking ceremonies to celebrate the complex that will provide students and faculty with state-of-the-art facilities for pioneering interdisciplinary education and research.

Launched in 2001, CITRIS is one of four California Institutes for Science and Innovation, formed as a public--private partnership. Drawing from strengths in engineering, the sciences, business, public policy, economics, and the humanities, CITRIS has grown rapidly to embrace dozens of faculty--student teams across the four UC partner campuses, including Berkeley, Davis, Merced, and Santa Cruz.

The new CITRIS building will be the hub of this wide-ranging network—a lively nexus for development of innovative, high-impact technology targeted to solve some of the most challenging problems in energy, health, security, the environment, and beyond.

"The goal of CITRIS is to maximize the impact of our education and research," said Engineering dean Richard Newton in an upbeat presentation emphasizing the CITRIS hallmarks of collaboration, corporate partnerships, and "use-inspired" research to serve society and improve people's lives. Key contributors, he said, are the corporate and private donors who have funded the building and the students working on CITRIS projects today, who will be the leaders of tomorrow.

"The words of the CITRIS acronym really spoke to me," said Elizabeth Reilly ('07 ME), a graduate student working in CITRIS on "energy-harvesting" wireless sensor networks that she hopes will help conserve our energy supply. "A center that's in the interest of society; there's an opportunity to do research here that really matters."

Dado Banatao, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and major CITRIS benefactor, also spoke. "The lifelong and distance learning aspects of the institute were what really brought CITRIS to the attention of my wife Maria and me," he said. "We believe strongly in bringing the strength and values of a Berkeley engineering education to students who would not otherwise have such an opportunity."

The 145,000 square-foot building, scheduled for completion in 2007, will include a nanofabrication laboratory, distance learning center, flexible educational and research facilities, and will link to the partnering UC campuses.

Visit the CITRIS Web site at www.citris-uc.org for more details.