March 17, 2006 - Fred Kavli Building dedicated at SLAC - Press Release

The Fred Kavli Building (Click on image for larger version)

Menlo Park, CA—The Department of Energy's Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Stanford University dedicated the Fred Kavli Building on March 17, 2006. Made possible through contributions from Physicist Fred Kavli and the Kavli Foundation, this state-of-the-art building is the centerpiece of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), a joint collaboration between SLAC and Stanford University.

"The discoveries made by astrophysicists over the past 40 years have transformed our knowledge of the universe," said KIPAC director Roger Blandford. "All of this was immensely clear to Fred Kavli and others when they created KIPAC three years ago. The Fred Kavli Building and the research that goes on inside is a result of their foresight and initiative."

The 25,000 square foot building includes a high-tech auditorium, conference rooms, workspace for 90 people and stunning views of Stanford University and the Bay. It will soon also house a visualization lab offering the ability to display three-dimensional cosmological simulations on an 8' x 10' screen.

SLAC Director Jonathan Dorfan and Stanford President John Hennessy expressed their gratitude to the donors and to the Department of Energy (DOE), which is a major supporter of the Institute’s occupants and of its operating costs.

"The DOE is pleased and proud to see that the accelerator tools, some developed here at SLAC, have be reapplied to drive the development of new tools," said Robin Staffin, representing the DOE Office of Science.  "But the greatest tool of all is that of the human mind.  This is a resource in which Stanford University and SLAC have set the world’s standard."

"This building will tie together SLAC and the Stanford campus in a unique and beautiful way," said Hennessy. "The work we do here will encourage the exchange of ideas and provide the foundation that will enable us to think differently."

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and Congressman Mike Honda both attended the ceremony and congratulated SLAC, Stanford University, KIPAC and Fred Kavli on the dedication of the new building.

"We invest in basic science because we believe in its long range benefits to society," Fred Kavli told an audience of about 150 using the Kavli Building auditorium for the first time. "Sacrifices that we make today will build a future more spectacular than we can imagine. I am confident that the scientists here will make great discoveries and answer some of our most fundamental questions."

Also at the ceremony were Pierre Schwob, the Palo Alto entrepreneur whose $1 million donation funded the building's Pierre R. Schwob Computing and Information Center, dedicated to the computational and large-scale visualization aspects of KIPAC research, and Adele and Pehong Chen, whose generous donation endowed the chair for the KAVLI Institute.

Activities in the building will champion the increasing convergence of particle physics—the science of the extremely small—and astrophysics—the science of the very large. KIPAC researchers seek solutions to some of today's most fascinating and challenging problems in astrophysics and cosmology.

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