Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul cuts the ribbon during ceremonies held at the Center of Excellence Building.
New York State Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul visited the headquarters of the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems (SyracuseCoE) on Wednesday, Aug. 24, to celebrate the opening of new labs that will fuel research, teaching and industry collaboration by students and faculty members from Syracuse University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF). Hochul was joined by Syracuse University Vice Chancellor Mike Haynie, SUNY ESF President Quentin Wheeler, Centerstate Corporation for Economic Opportunity President and CEO Rob Simpson and SyracuseCoE Executive Director Ed Bogucz in offering remarks and cutting the ribbon.
The new labs are designed to support research, teaching and industry collaboration on combustion technology, energy conversion, flow visualization, energy-efficient building systems and biofuels production. They will be used by by students and faculty from Syracuse University, SUNY ESF and corporate partners of SyracuseCoE. Initial research and development projects that are already underway are funded by New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Industries associated with environmental and energy systems are critical to New York State’s economy and research universities are drivers of New York’s economic success. Central New York benefits from these facilities by strategically enabling Syracuse University and SUNY ESF to recruit bright new faculty members and prepare students for jobs at companies in Central New York and around the world.
The new labs were constructed as a component of an $8.7 million investment in new facilities at SyracuseCoE that was catalyzed by a $3 million award from New York State that was made through the process of annual awards focused on priorities developed by Regional Economic Development Councils. The balance of funding for the project came from private and federal sources.
