LANSING — The Michigan State University Foundation announced that Applied Research Associates Inc., a scientific and engineering research company headquartered in Albuquerque, N.M., has opened an innovation center within the University Corporate Research Park, just south of the MSU campus.
The university said the center would partner with MSU’s College of Engineering on various research projects.
ARA provides specialized research and technology services, as well as testing and product development in the fields of health, science, and engineering. The company also provides engineering services and products for alternative fuels.
“Adjacent to the university, the UCRP is the ideal location, providing access to our collaborative partners as we begin refining our research,” said Jeff Berrie, vice president of ARA’s BerrieHill Research Division.
ARA comes to Lansing to begin work on autonomous vehicles with MSU’s College of Engineering, advancing the exploration in the key areas of object recognition, data fusion, control systems, and artificial intelligence.
ARA was founded in 1979 and is employee-owned, with more than 1,000 employees at locations in the U.S. and Canada. It offers technical services in defense technologies, computer software and simulation, systems analysis, civil engineering, biomedical engineering, environmental technologies, and blast testing and measurement. For more information, please visit www.ara.com.
The Michigan State University College of Engineering has nine academic programs serving 6,400 students, including more than 5,600 undergraduates and 800 graduate students. The college’s research focus is on innovation in automotive, composite materials, energy, health care technologies, pavement preservation, and security. The college is the home of two new academic departments — the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering and a partner in MSU’s new Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering. A new $60 million Bio Engineering Facility opened in 2016 for interdisciplinary basic and applied research at the interface of life and physical sciences, engineering, information science, and math. More at www.egr.msu.edu.
Established in 1973, the MSU Foundation fuels economic development initiatives through the commercialization of technologies invented by Michigan State University faculty, staff, and students. The foundation also operates the East Lansing Technology Innovation Center, the Michigan Biotechnology Institute, Red Cedar Ventures, Spartan Innovations, and the University Corporate Research Park. More information at www.msufoundation.org.