On Feb. 17, Penn President Amy Gutmann will join University Trustees and the deans of the Schools of Arts and Sciences (SAS) and Engineering and Applied Science at the 3200 block of Walnut Street for a groundbreaking ceremony for the Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology.

The $80 million Center, named for Penn alumnus and Trustee Krishna Singh, will provide microscopy laboratories, optics labs and 10,000 square feet of environmentally controlled clean rooms to researchers at Penn and in the region. Singh, who provided a $20 million naming gift for the Center, is founder, president and chief executive officer of the energy-technology company Holtec International, based in Marlton, N.J.

The state-of-the-art facility, developed jointly by SAS and Penn Engineering, will place the University at the forefront of the emerging and vital field of nanoscience, says Eduardo Glandt, dean of Penn Engineering, by serving as a regional hub of multi-disciplinary fundamental and translational research, education and innovation.

“This facility will allow researchers in academia and business to venture into this transformative technology,” he says.

The private groundbreaking ceremony, scheduled for noon at the future site of the building, will coincide with the spring meeting of the University Trustees.

“We are thrilled to be taking this important step toward providing our faculty with access to state-of-the-art resources, and even more thrilled with the opportunities that the Singh Center will create for scientists from Penn Engineering, SAS, and elsewhere to collaborate,” says Rebecca Bushnell, dean of SAS.

“Science is, after all, done by people, and as the boundaries between scientific disciplines become increasingly blurred, this kind of collaboration is what will keep Penn at the cutting edge of research.”

The 100,000 square-foot, L-shaped Center is being designed by the New York-based firm Weiss/Manfredi. The structure will feature walls of glass and steel and is expected to be one of the largest nanotechnology centers in the region. “Its close proximity to a world-class medical school will facilitate advances in medicine and the health sciences,” Glandt says.