It is an exciting time to be a part of the Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Department at Iowa State. The department continues to grow, and to accommodate this growth and address the most pressing issues of agricultural and biosystems engineering industries worldwide, the ABE department moved into brand new facilities the summer of 2014.
The department is now housed in Elings Hall and Sukup Hall, which are part of Iowa State’s Biorenewables Complex that also includes the Biorenewables Research Laboratory. Elings Hall and Sukup Hall provide more than 100,000 square feet of modern research labs, classrooms, student spaces and offices offering a state-of-the-art learning and innovation environment. The quality research, teaching labs and classrooms are crucial for enabling our faculty to improve student learning, perform cutting edge research and work closely on projects with undergraduate students, graduate students, colleagues, and engineers from private industry to solve our global society’s problems of the 21st century.
Our official building dedication was held on September 25, 2014 with more than 450 people in attendance.
The building project raised more than $14 million from private sources including a $5 million lead gift from Dr. Virgil Elings, a $5 million gift from the Sukup family, a John Deere gift of $1.25 million, $500,000 from an alumnus, $256,000 from Sauer Danfoss Company, $250,000 from Ag Leader, and $200,000 from the Iowa Pork Producers Association. The groundbreaking took place in March 2012.
To see photos of the construction process, check out our Flickr page.
Below you’ll find the archived collection of alumni email updates. If you are an ABE alumni and do not currently receive the quarterly email, but would like to, please send a request to abe@iastate.edu.