CIEMAS opens, café to come soon

The Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences is now mostly ready for business. Twinnies Caf� will open in late September, and the rest of the building will come online soon. After years of anticipation, the University’s engineers and scientists have a new place to collaborate on research—and just as importantly, a new place to eat—with the opening of the nearly-completed CIEMAS building. The building’s full name is the Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences; it consists of two wings that will include faculty and administrative offices, laboratories, student areas, a “cave”—an advanced visualization room that will provide virtual scenarios on its six-sided surface—and the brand-new Twinnies Café. All of these venues will boast some of the hottest technological innovations available and are aimed at furthering the University’s emphasis on interdisciplinary research and collaboration. Many students and faculty in the Pratt School of Engineering have been eagerly awaiting the completion of the building. They’ve already checked out some of its state-of-the-art features, undoubtedly excited about the idea of relief from the all-too-familiar and crowded confines of Hudson Hall and Teer Engineering Library. The building comes on line just before the expansion of Pratt to include 50 more students per class, set to begin in Fall 2005. First-year graduate student Debby Chang, who is concentrating on mechanical engineering with an emphasis on biology, said Duke’s dedication to improving Pratt and its facilities factored into her decision to attend the University. “There was definitely a pull to come to Duke because of the new building,” Chang said. “I definitely see myself spending a lot of time here.” Other students, such as Pratt sophomore Chris Morecroft, praised the interdisciplinary ideals that goverened the design of the new center. “The interdisciplinary program at Duke makes it unique from other programs in the country,” Morecroft said. “[CIEMAS] is an outstanding building that will really improve the quality of engineering at Duke.” As each day passes, the anticipation of gaining full access to the CIEMAS building grows. “We had hoped to occupy the building earlier, but construction has moved on schedule,” said Robert Clark, senior associate dean of Pratt and chair of the space planning committee for the new center. “We are currently moving students into the east wing; the west wing is substantially completed.” Although faculty members are gearing up for their new high-tech laboratories, they also seem excited for a new place to take a break from their work. “We’re all really looking forward to having another eating place as opposed to the [Levine Science Research Center],” Clark said. Jim Wulforst, director of the University’s dining services, said students and faculty should have to wait no longer than late September for the opening of Twinnies. The café will be very similar to Blue Express in the LSRC in that the food served there will be made-to-order. In addition, Twinnies will be a Starbucks-licensed vendor. Wulforst was quick to note that although Twinnies will share some similarities with Blue Express, students and faculty should not dismiss the new café as a mere carbon copy of the popular eatery only a few hundred yards away. “The atmosphere [of Twinnies] is really unique—it’s a really neat space... the aesthetics will have a different feel,” he said. Kristina Johnson, dean of the Pratt School of Engineering, was very excited about the entire project and said the addition of the new café will have a positive impact on the community. “There is a body of research that shows good food is one of the key ingredients to positioning researchers to make major breakthroughs in their work—that for me translates into ‘good coffee and tea,’” Johnson said. “While in Ireland I researched the famous Bewley’s Café, where many Irish Nobel Laureates sipped coffee and wrote and thought great ideas and deeds. The impact of the café will be to provide a wonderful intellectual collision space for the brewing of great ideas—and coffee—by our students, faculty and staff,” she added.