|
February 7, 2003
Carr:
A Crossroads of the Sciences
Lilian
Hsu, professor of biochemistry and Elizabeth Page Greenawalt Chair
in Physical Sciences, has been giving a lot of directions lately.
With her office in the newly renovated Carr Laboratory located
at the crossroads of Carr, Kendade Hall, and Clapp Laboratory,
it's only natural that visitors tap on her door as they
try to find their way around the reconfigured hallways, labs,
and offices. Since the doors to Carr swung open in early January,
Hsu and her colleagues have spent long hours unpacking equipment
and getting their teaching and research labs set up for the start
of the spring semester.
In a way, all of Carr is itself a crossroads of the sciences,
one of the very deliberate results of its eight-month reconstruction.
A place where adjacent labs and offices and shared equipment encourage
interactions among faculty and students with overlapping research
interests, Carr represents the second phase of the $34.5-million
science center project, following the fall 2002 opening of Kendade.
The remaining phase, the renovation and reconstruction of Shattuck
Hall, is to be completed by September. (Cleveland Hall's
renovation will also be completed by September.) When finished,
the center will bring together the departments of astronomy, biological
sciences, chemistry, computer science, earth and environment,
mathematics and statistics, and physics, and MHC's programs
in biochemistry and in neuroscience and behavior.
"Our center will encourage and facilitate cross-disciplinary
and multidisciplinary conversations between and among Mount Holyoke
scientists and their students,” says Frank DeToma, Professor
of Biological Sciences on the Alumnae Foundation and director
of the science center. The new floor plan tells the story. On
the top floor of Carr, Hsu shares a large research lab space with
Sean Decatur, associate professor of chemistry. Although in different
departments—he in chemistry, she in biochemistry—their
research interests are related: Hsu conducts research in transcription,
the process by which the information encoded in DNA is copied
into RNA, while Decatur specializes in research into how chains
of amino acids transform themselves into three-dimensional proteins.
Both faculty members are looking forward to the interaction of
their students. "We're going to be a lot more connected,
with a lot more flow among the labs,” Decatur says.
That's only the beginning. Among Hsu's and Decatur's
new neighbors are Craig Woodard, associate professor of biological
sciences, who studies how steroid hormones control development
in the common fruit fly; Amy Frary '90, assistant professor
of biological sciences, who looks at the genetic control of quantitative
trait variation in plants; and Sarah Bacon '87, Clare Boothe
Luce Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, who uses rats
to study why mothers' immune systems do not reject embryos.
"It's going to be a very lively research community
on this floor,” says Hsu. It's a similar story on
each of the floors: the ground floor is home to physics, physical
chemistry, and biochemistry teaching and research labs, while
teaching and research labs for general and organic chemistry are
found on the lower level.
"I like all this togetherness,” says Woodard, "because
I think we're going to be exchanging ideas a lot more.”
Decatur points out that the building arranges the laboratories
in a much more practical and logical fashion, gathering together
related facilities that had been spread across floors—or
even buildings.
In addition to being spacious, bright, welcoming, and thoroughly
up-to-date, Carr's facilities are designed and built to
have a minimal impact on the environment. Carr is one of a few
campus science buildings built in accordance with Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) criteria for a "green
building,” as established by the United States Green Building
Council, an international organization that includes representation
from construction, environmental, architectural, financial, and
manufacturing firms. Some of its environment-friendly features
are obvious, such as the pair of showers provided for those who
commute by bicycle. Others are more subtle, such as the floor
tile of recycled materials, the new-growth wood cabinetry, the
energy-efficient windows, the custom-made vent hoods with their
energy-saving air valves, and the lighting controlled by motion
sensors. The entire building is now temperature-controlled both
summer and winter, but individual room thermostats and windows
that open provide new ways for energy use to be kept to a minimum.
(The air-conditioning will be especially appreciated by Woodard,
whose work with transgenic fruit flies can be thrown off by high
temperatures.)
| 
Photo:
Fred Leblanc
Students
cross a floor full of chromosomes on their way to Carr.
|
When Carr was dedicated
in 1955, no one could have foreseen the demands that computer-driven
research would place on the infrastructure a half-century later.
Those demands have been taken into account in the renovation,
with electrical outlets and computer network connections by the
score—and provision for adding more. Open ceilings allow
access to the building's networks of pipes and cables. The
building's greatly increased capacity and flexibility "is
really going to increase our ability to be creative with the curriculum,”
says Decatur.
For the first time, Carr provides for central receiving and storage
of chemicals and equipment, and a centralized inventory. DeToma
points out that this will save money and help the environment,
by allowing researchers to avoid ordering chemicals that are already
on the College's shelves.
To say that faculty are eagerly anticipating working in the new
Carr would be an understatement. "It's an inspired
design,” says DeToma. "It's just wonderful!
I am very happy,” says Hsu. "Every inch is good space.”
Who Was Emma Carr?
Emma Perry Carr, born July 23, 1880, in Holmesville, Ohio, was
a pioneering physical organic chemist who attended Mount Holyoke
from 1900 to 1902. After receiving her doctorate from the University
of Chicago in 1910, she returned to MHC to teach chemistry, retiring
in 1946. In 1937, she became the first recipient of the prestigious
Garvan Medal, created to recognize distinguished service to chemistry
by women chemists. Carr was a worldwide leader in the use of the
ultraviolet spectra of organic molecules as a means of investigating
their electronic structures. She led one of the earliest collaborative
research groups that involved faculty, graduate students, and
undergraduate students. Carr died January 7, 1972, in Evanston,
Illinois.
The
counter is
2,173
|
