ADM celebrated the grand opening of its new ADM Science and Technology Center at the University of Illinois Research Park.
The facility quadruples ADM’s footprint at the University of Illinois Research Park and reflects a significant expansion of its capabilities.
In addition to its focus on process and financial modeling as well as business intelligence and business development, the new center’s portfolio will allow the addition of human nutrition research and development, wet chemistry, sensory science, data science, computational fluid dynamics and customer interface and applications.
Facility will provide hands-on experiences
“Our partnership with the University of Illinois has been a win for ADM, the university and its students, as well as the industries in which ADM operates, and we are so excited about this new facility and the future of our collaboration,” said Todd Werpy, Ph.D., senior vice president, chief science officer at ADM.
“University of Illinois students and visiting scientists have helped ADM tackle big challenges and have developed business cases for important research projects. For the university and its students, the new facility will provide hands-on experiences working on real projects that are making an impact not just on ADM, but also on the world.
“The expansion strengthens our relationship with the university, leading to more value for ADM, more opportunities for students, and more innovation to unlock the power of nature in order to enrich the quality of life.”
Center will create agtech opportunities for students
The ADM Science and Technology Center will create opportunities for students across campus including chemical engineering, chemistry, information science, computer science, food science and human nutrition, technology management, agricultural and consumer economics, animal science and business programs just to name a few.
“The new ADM Science and Technology Center at Research Park is a tangible outcome of the depth and breadth of our institutional strategic partnership,” said Robert J. Jones, Chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“An alliance of this scale and scope is critical to the future of our region and our state. It also provides unique experiential learning opportunities for our students, which is critical for preparing our future workforce. It also further cements our campus and community as an epicenter of agtech.”
ADM originally opened at Research Park in 2007. Then known as the Bioenergy Modeling Center, it focused on computational work, conceptual engineering and modeling to evaluate the feasibility of manufacturing specialty chemicals.
