Milwaukee School of Engineering will break ground later this year on a four-story, 97,000-square-foot $76.5 million engineering building on a surface parking lot, the school announced Monday.
The Robert D. Kern Engineering Innovation Center – to be built on the southeast corner of State and Milwaukee Streets – will include flexible labs, classrooms, AI and robotics workshops, an outdoor sustainability lab and public collaborative learning spaces.
The building will connect to the current Allen-Bradley Hall of Science and the Fred F. Loock Engineering Center to the south.
The new facility – part of MSOE’s $125 million NEXT BOLD STEP: The Campaign to Accelerate Innovation fundraising campaign – will focus on integrating AI and machine learning into all of of the school’s engineering programs, the announcement said.
In addition to MSOE’s Mechanical Engineering Department; Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering Department; Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management Department; and User Experience program, the new building will also house a new Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence Education, which the announcement said, “will guide initiatives across campus, attract top faculty talent and support area businesses. The center will allow faculty, staff and students to rethink what’s possible and incorporate AI into their multidisciplinary programs and projects.”
Ramlow/Stein Architecture + Interiors is architect on the project, which will be built by VJS Construction Services.
MSOE also announced that it will launch the Dwight and Dian Diercks School of Advanced Computing to help the school, “weave AI and machine learning into degree programs across the university, and to support the exponential opportunities that advanced computing and computational sciences make possible in every industry.”
More on the NEXT BOLD STEP campaign – which has so far raised $80 million – can be found at nextboldstep.msoe.edu.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
