Invitation to PSEB Town Hall, Tuesday, May 5

To: SEAS Faculty and FAS Science Faculty, Dean's Offices, Provost's Office, PSEB Facilities Staff 

Dear Colleagues,

Since announcing plans for the Physical Sciences and Engineering Building (PSEB) in 2020, we’ve made great progress toward making this ambitious project a reality. We last met as a community in March 2024 to discuss progress up to that point. As we rapidly approach the completion of Phase 1, we invite you to participate in a fourth PSEB town hall meeting on Tuesday, May 5, at 3:30 p.m., on the 14th floor of Kline Tower. This location offers a unique vantage point of the project site on upper science hill.

At this fourth town hall, we will present major construction milestones on Upper Science Hill and offer important updates on programming for the building. We will have several graphical and informational displays and a 3-D scale model of the project on view. For reference, a brief summary of the overall upper science hill building program is provided below this message.

For those who cannot attend in person, a livestream option will be circulated in advance. A recording will also be distributed post-event. 

We are extremely fortunate to have many dedicated faculty and staff contributing to this project. In particular, we thank the PSEB Phase 2 Committee, led by co-chairs Karsten Heeger and Sohrab Ismail-Beigi, for their continued leadership and contributions. 

Community input remains critical to this project’s success and its impact on the future of the physical sciences and engineering at Yale. We look forward to your participation.

Sincerely,
Michael Crair
Vice Provost for Research


Background: Upper Science Hill/Physical Sciences and Engineering Building (PSEB)

We began exploring the feasibility for this facility in response to the recommendations made by the University Science Strategy Committee (USSC) in 2018. The Upper Science Hill project includes numerous new buildings and infrastructure elements, while PSEB entails several new interconnected structures, all across two distinct phases:

•    Phase 1 creates new, dedicated spaces for an Advanced Instrumentation Development Center (AIDC), a Wright Lab Extension Wing (WLEW) for the Department of Physics, a Chemical Safety Building (CSB), a new parking structure, and a new utilities and thermal plant.
•    Phase 2, facilitated by the completion of all the enabling components during Phase 1, entails the construction of the new Physical Sciences and Engineering Building. Some of the programmatic elements in Phase 2 include a cleanroom, a materials characterization core, research laboratories, and a convening and event space.

The resulting Upper Science Hill complex will directly support and elevate the physical sciences and engineering at Yale, with a particular emphasis on initiatives in Quantum Science, Engineering and Materials, and dedicated space for advanced instrumentation and core facilities (as recommended by the USSC). It will serve faculty from the Departments of Physics and Applied Physics and several other departments across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS).