New Science Center Opens

Georgetown President John J. DeGioia welcomes students, alumni, faculty and staff to the Regents Hall building dedication ceremony.

Rev. Kevin O'Brien, S.J., vice president of mission and ministry, blesses Regents Hall during the new science facility's official opening.

From left: Jane Hopkins Carey, board of regents chair; Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Bryn Mawr College president and former Georgetown College dean; Chester Gillis, dean, Georgetown College; DeGioia; and YuYe Tong, professor and Department of Chemistry chair, cut the ribbon to officially open Regents Hall.

Regents Hall is Georgetown's new home for the sciences. The $100 million facility houses most of the university's biology, chemistry and physics faculty.

Regents Hall houses the Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology, funded in part through a $6.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Standards and Technology.

Students walk through Regents Hall, which opened to the university community earlier this week, for their first day of classes.

The new 154,000-square-foot facility has five floors with technologically advanced instrumentation and light- and temperature-controlled environments.

In addition to classroom spaces, the new science building is equipped with smart screens for teleconferences.

The new building also includes inviting communal spaces for students to study and converse.

Many of the labs in the building have glass walls so people can see the research and work in progress by students and faculty.

The facility's outdoor space leads to the neighboring Hariri Building's patio and to Leavey Center's Sellinger Lounge through the fourth floor lobby.