This joint initiative by faculty on campus and at SLAC will explore fundamental questions about the origins and evolution of the universe. Last June， after several years of. discussion and planning by our colleagues in the Sthools of Medicine and Engineering， the trustees approved the creation of the new Bioengineering Department.It is the first department at Stanford to be established jointly in two schools， and our colleagues， Professor Scott Delp from Mechanical Engineering and Professor Paul Yock from Medicine， will lead this new department.Although we recognize that there are challenges in bridging disciplines that are culturally and operationally quite different， the opportunity to focus on translating discoveries in the biosciences into clinical advances in human health is too. compelling to ignore. At last year's meeting， I stated my he lief that the environmentalarea held great potential for multidisciplinary research and teaching collaborations. While a comtnittee of faculty charged by the provost is actively working on a plan for a broad environmental program， one initiative in this area was launched in November： the Global Climate and Energy Project， or G-CEP for short. G-CEP will explore economicallyvi able methods for the environmentally benign generation of energy， one of the most challenging problems we face both in the developed and developing world. Professor Lynn Orr， after serving as dean of the School of Earth Sciences far eight years， is leading G-CEP， and Professor Chris Edwards from Mechanical Engineering is the deputy director;An international group of companies， representing a wide range of energy producers and users， anticipate investing up to $ 225 million in this research over the next 10 years.
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