University Launches $20 Million Innovate@BU
Funded by a partnership between the University and a group of alumni, BU creates Innovate@BU with support of $20 million for the first 10 years. The University-wide initiative gives all students opportunities to engage in solving real-world problems and hands-on innovation.
BU Announces First Associate Provost for Diversity & Inclusion
BU names award-winning poet Crystal Ann Williams to the newly created position of associate provost for diversity & inclusion. Charged with promoting diversity among the University’s ranks, Williams’ goals include helping Provost Jean Morrison develop practices and programs to further diversify BU’s faculty.
Andrew Emili Heads New Center for Network Systems Biology
Andrew Emili, a professor in the MED biochemistry and CAS biology departments, becomes director of the new University-wide Center for Network Systems Biology. Emili aims “to create a highly collaborative, multidisciplinary research hub that tackles important fundamental questions in the field by forging new links with interested researchers across BU’s campuses, the greater Boston area, and the world.”
BU Doubles Number of Posse Scholars
The University marks its 10th year of partnership with the Posse Foundation, which sends groups of students to college together, tuition-free for four years, with the idea that a supportive unit is key to future success. With the addition of a California cohort to the University’s long-time relationship with the Atlanta Posse program, BU doubles the number of scholarship recipients from the foundation.
BU Wins $20M for NSF Engineering Research Center
The National Science Foundation awards BU a $20 million, five-year grant to create a multi-institution Engineering Research Center, with the goal of synthesizing personalized heart tissue for clinical use. The grant, which is renewable for a total of 10 years and $40 million, is designed to accelerate an area of engineering research—in this case, bioengineering functional heart tissue—that is likely to spur societal change and economic growth within a decade.
Trustee Rajen Kilachand Makes Historic Gift
Alumnus and Trustee Rajen Kilachand (Questrom’74, Hon.’14) becomes the largest donor in Boston University history with a $115M gift to support research. Divided into two parts, the first designates $15M to the new Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering. The second part creates a $100M endowment called the Rajen Kilachand Fund for Integrated Life Sciences and Engineering, which will promote, in perpetuity, groundbreaking research at the intersection of the life sciences and engineering across the University.
New Kilachand Center Links Key Research Disciplines
Boston University officially opens the $150M Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering, a 170,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art research facility that brings together life scientists, engineers, and physicians from the Medical Campus and Charles River Campus and promises to speed life-changing developments in the fields of human health, environment, and energy.
BU Athletic Hall of Fame Inducts Six
BU Athletics names six Terrier legends to the BU Athletic Hall of Fame: veteran distance-running coach Bruce Lehane, former Athletics administrator Dick Fecteau (SED’51), and four accomplished athletes, Bob Danville (MET’82), Matt Gilroy (MET’09), Robyn Kenney (CAS’02, GRS’07), and April Setterlund (Questrom’11). All of this year’s athletes earned All-America honors as Terriers.
Network Exec to Class of 2017: Write Your Own Life Story
Commencement keynote speaker Bonnie Hammer offers BU grads a storyteller’s advice for post-college life. “When you leave today, you’ll begin to write the most powerful, most meaningful, and most entertaining story of your life,” says Hammer (CGS’69, COM’71, SED’75, Hon.’17), chair of NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group. “It’s the story of you.” Over her career, Hammer has overseen USA Network, Syfy, E! Entertainment, Oxygen, and Universal Cable Productions.
New Center to Advance Understanding of the Brain
Boston University creates the Neurophotonics Center and recruits one of the world’s preeminent researchers in the field to lead it. David Boas joins BU from the faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he pioneered new technologies to see deep into the brain. His work has improved our understanding of the organ’s healthy functioning and offers new pathways to understand how strokes, migraines, Alzheimer’s disease, and other neurologic maladies affect it.
