University of Miami Builds Marine Technology and Life Sciences Seawater Research Building

The University of Miami was awarded $15 million in stimulus funding in July of 2009 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to build the $44 million Marine Technology and Life Sciences Seawater (MTLSS) Research Building in Miami, Fla. To be constructed at the University’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, the facility will house state-of-the-art seawater laboratories and multidisciplinary research facilities dedicated to two major areas of coastal studies—the destructive power of hurricanes and the biology of coastal waters. The building will include the 8,520-sf Surge-Structure-Atmosphere Interaction (SUSTAIN) research facility to study the physics and dynamics of hurricanes and the associated impact of severe wind-driven and wave-induced storm surges on coastal structures. When complete, SUSTAIN will be the only facility in the world capable of generating hurricane force winds in a three-dimensional test environment allowing studies of the interaction of wind and water during coastal storms.The MTLSS will also include the 47,942-sf Marine Life Science Center (MLSC), a separately funded facility to support fundamental coastal biology research in areas such as coral reef biology, aquaculture, fisheries, biological oceanography, and marine biomedical science. Both SUSTAIN and the MLSC will benefit from the facility's ready access to fresh seawater. This integrated building will provide significant new opportunities for interdisciplinary bio-physical research. Completion is expected by fall of 2012.