HOT SCS RESEARCH

Carnegie Mellon Moves Ahead with Plans To Establish A Presence in Silicon Valley

Carnegie Mellon officials are crisscrossing the country more and more often these days as the university continues its efforts to establish a presence in Silicon Valley.

Last January, the university signed a memorandum of understanding with NASA establishing a partnership to explore the creation of a Carnegie Mellon branch campus at the agency's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. The branch campus would potentially occupy part of a 40-acre tract in the vast 2,000-acre Ames Moffett Field site that would be set aside as a university reserve for Carnegie Mellon and the University of California at Santa Cruz.

"Our goal would be to showcase our research and educational offerings in Silicon Valley, the IT capital of the world," says SCS Dean Jim Morris, who has been one of the driving forces behind the initiative. He says there appears to be interest in many of the programs Carnegie Mellon offers. It's not just confined to computer technology. Morris says the goal of current planning is to create a suitable "platform," including classrooms, lab space and housing, that would allow any department of the university to run a program there at reasonable cost. Initially, the facility would be used for research with NASA, executive education programs, e-commerce courses, computer science, robotics and software engineering. "A presence in Silicon Valley can enhance the educational experience of students at the Pittsburgh campus by giving them opportunities to do internships or research with NASA or Valley companies," says Duane Adams, Carnegie Mellon vice provost for research, who, along with Morris, has been spearheading the Silicon Valley initiative. "The next step is to sign a formal space act agreement with NASA, and we hope to do that in the coming weeks."

NASA is currently developing an Environmental Impact Statement, which must be approved by local communities and organizations in the Valley before any construction can be authorized.

"We have a seat at the table," says Adams, "as all the questions of master planning, environmental approval, infrastructure and services are being worked out." To help with this process, the university has hired San Francisco-based firms BMS Design Group, EHDD architects, and consultant Barnes & Company to deal with NASA on a daily basis. Adams says funding for these services has come from Silicon Valley-based friends of the university. While educational initiatives have not yet been spelled out, research aspects of the partnership are already falling into place. NASA has given the university $550,000 to develop plans for a High Dependability Computing Consortium. "We want to undertake basic, empirical, and engineering research aimed at making the creation and maintenance of computer systems a true professional discipline comparable to civil engineering and medicine, disciplines people can stake their lives on without question," Morris says. "As shapers of the future, universities should address the software quality problem now, before the world at large sees a crisis." "NASA has problems in this area for us to work on," Morris continued. He has put together a steering group. Among the institutions that have signed on are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Washington. In addition, he says, a host of companies in the Valley have expressed interest in the consortium. Although the Silicon Valley initiative is beginning with a focus on robotics and computer science, Adams emphasizes that the goal is to broaden participation to other parts of the university. He urges other colleges and departments with ideas for Silicon Valley to contact him or Morris. "This is only the beginning," he says. "There's lots we can potentially do."

But the Silicon Valley initiative is not a done deal. University President Jared Cohon emphasized in the initial announcement that the millions of dollars needed for it to succeed must come from Valley organizations. It's also possible the project will not be feasible if NASA does not receive approval on its environmental impact study, or if fallout from the upcoming election forces the agency to change its priorities. But these possibilities do not deter Adams and his team. "I'm quite confident that it's going to happen," he says. "The details have to be worked out over the next several years." We're hoping for approval on environmental issues by Sept. 2001. If that comes through, we would hope to have initial facilities in place by early 2004." Carnegie Mellon's initiative is just a tiny piece of NASA's grand plans for Moffett Field, a former military base which was ceded to the agency by the Navy in 1994. The university would be one of a number of partners on the site where NASA envisions a new city that, among other things, would include an astrobiology building and The Computer Museum History Center. NASA officials envision Moffett Field as a unique institution in the heart of Silicon Valley, where researchers from universities government and industry would work in an intense campus environment to pursue individual interests and joint interests in science and technology. "Not from NASA alone, not from Silicon Valey industry alone, and not from world-class universities alone will tomorrow's required innovations emerge," said NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin. "They will come from all of us working together and making the most of the special attributes each of us brings to the table. That is what we will do at NASA ames."

CONTACT:
Anne Watzman +1 (412) 268-3830