Prairie View A&M, the Houston-area’s oldest historically Black university, recently opened a new $70 million engineering building – the college’s first new facility in nearly two decades. Spanning 106,000 square feet of space, this building incorporates student spaces and focused research areas with nearly two-thirds dedicated to classroom instruction and one-third for faculty and graduate student research lab space.
The lab spaces support multidisciplinary research in areas such as space exploration, data analytics & artificial intelligence (AI), robotics & structural analysis as well as 3D manufacturing. There is also a maker space area for students to collaborate across engineering disciplines; plus it is one of few buildings nationwide that has a microgravity drop tower for conducting experiments under simulated conditions found in outer space!
ConocoPhillips invested $1.2 million into this venture which will include lectures conducted by engineers and professors who will show students how to use equipment within their industry effectively.
