Missouri University of Science and Technology will celebrate the opening of and officially dedicate its 50,000-square-foot Innovation Lab at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 11. The Innovation Lab is located on the S&T campus at 650 Tim Bradley Way, directly south of the Havener Center. Parking is available in the subsurface parking garage at 699 Tim Bradley Way. A reception will be held immediately following the dedication.

“The imagination and passion of our students, their creativity and possibility thinking have a new home on our campus,” says Missouri S&T Chancellor Mo Dehghani. “The Innovation Lab is a place where ideas collide, and our students will flex their entrepreneurial muscles to begin to comprehend the true power of their drive to innovate. We are profoundly grateful to everyone whose support carried the vision for this great new facility to fruition.”

The Innovation Lab is the first new building on the S&T campus to realize the Kummer Institute’s vision for student innovation and entrepreneurship. The Kummer Institute was established immediately following the transformational $300 million gift made to the university by the late Fred and June Kummer in 2020. Fred Kummer earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1955.The gift was inspired in part by a desire to prepare S&T students to excel as entrepreneurs and innovators in a global economy that’s increasingly driven by technology.

Other donors who will be recognized during the dedication ceremony include:  

• Carl and Delores Goller, whose gift supported the creation of one of the building’s active learning classrooms. Carl Goller earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Missouri S&T in 1949.
• Min H. Kao, whose gift supported the creation of one of the building’s IDEA labs, which are spaces that encourage and support cross-disciplinary work. Min H. Kao earned a doctor of engineering, honoris causa in absentia from Missouri S&T in 2014,
• Joseph and Sally Rupp, whose gift supported the creation of the Rupp Family Active Learning Classroom. Joseph Rupp earned a bachelor’s degree in metallurgical engineering from Missouri S&T in 1972.

The Innovation Lab marks the entrance to S&T’s Arrival District and includes maker spaces, modular classrooms, collaborative labs and a soaring central atrium, all designed to exude the energy of a hands-on learning environment and inspire possibility thinkers, discoverers and trailblazers in their quest to transform the status quo into solutions to the problems of the future.

About Missouri University of Science and Technology

Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students located in Rolla, Missouri. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System, Missouri S&T offers over 100 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top public universities for salary impact, according to the Wall Street Journal. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.