US university to expand facilities at underground campus
US$125,000 grant will fund infrastructure at Sanford Lab
Black Hills State University and Sanford Underground Research Facility are to receive a US$125,000 Innovation Grant from the South Dakota Board of Regents to fund infrastructure to advance the BHSU Underground Campus at Sanford Lab.
The underground cleanroom facility and adjoining workspace, known as the BHSU Underground Campus, is located at the 4,850ft level in the Sanford Lab and will be managed by BHSU staff working closely with Sanford Lab officials. The proximity of BHSU to the Sanford Lab (18 miles away) has already created a number of unique opportunities for collaborative research programs in areas of physics, chemistry, biology, geophysics, as well as other fields.
'We’ve been working with the BHSU team for over two years in planning the Underground Campus and securing funding. With this grant, we’re so pleased to be moving forward with construction soon so we’ll have the new facility operational in 2015,' said Mike Headley, director of Sanford Lab.
'The BHSU Underground Campus will be a great addition to the research capacity in South Dakota for our students and faculty to perform world-class research deep underground.'
The BHSU Underground Campus will create opportunities to develop research programmes, strengthen the partnership with Sanford Lab, enhance collaboration and extramural funding opportunities, increase graduate and undergraduate student involvement in underground science and create new education and outreach activities.
Initial uses for the cleanroom and research space include: ultra-sensitive physics detectors for assay of materials; a staging area for biologists studying microbes in situ; and student-based short-term projects from a variety of disciplines.
The BHSU Underground Campus will house the Low-Background Counting Facility, which will benefit many other experiments at Sanford Lab by documenting levels of radioactivity of materials used in detectors and other objects. This will accommodate up to eight experiments at any one time and will be available to other universities and partners, creating new opportunities for collaborative research.
'The cleanroom and research space at the 4,850 level of the deepest underground laboratory in the US creates unique student research opportunities and makes it possible for not just BHSU students but many other students throughout the state to greatly enhance teaching and research collaborations' said BHSU President Dr Tom Jackson.
