Michael Hooker Research Center atrium

While the facility houses laboratories and offices for the School's departments of environmental sciences and engineering, epidemiology, and nutrition, it also serves as our School's living room, providing inviting meeting spaces for interdepartmental collaboration.

Highlighted below are some of the research center's unique features.

• The Jane Hall Armfield and William Johnston Armfield IV Student Commons on the building's first floor is furnished with groupings of couches, chairs and tables -- all made by North Carolina companies. It is filled with students and faculty engaged in lively discussions and collaborations.

• Glass-paneled walls and staircases in the atrium on all levels can be inscribed with a name or a message for future generations to see.

• The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation Auditorium is the largest meeting space in the new research center. It has drop-down projectors and 104 built-in desks equipped with power and Internet connections. Five built-in cameras add video-conferencing capabilities for the School's flourishing distance education and outreach programs.

• The American Institute for Cancer Research -- World Cancer Research Fund Institute for the Advanced Study of Diet, Nutrition and Cancer -- a second floor wing in the new research center -- is dedicated to researching the role of diet and nutrition in the causes, prevention and treatment of cancer. The wing houses three laboratories, five faculty offices, a conference room and a student room. These facilities bring together the finest researchers and also assistant professors in the Marilyn Gentry Fellowship Program (a unique faculty development program funded by the American Institute for Cancer Research) to make new discoveries and create future scientists who will move forward our understanding of nutrition and cancer.

The Basics:

• Floor Area: 125,000 square feet
• Stories: 4 (plus a sub-basement for the building's mechanical systems)
• Laboratories: 31
• Offices: 30
• Furnishings: Made by North Carolina-based companies