I3@USD-Fall 2025

A transformative gift from philanthropist Darlene Marcos Shiley is funding a new future-forward building on the University of San Diego (USD) campus: one that will promote collaboration between the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences in a way that its designers and university leaders hope will supercharge creativity and innovation in a rapidly changing world. Historic Gift Fuels a New Era of STEM at USD every aspect of the building’s design and function.

students,” she says. “And then we hope, in theory, it leads to students who can go out into the world and solve problems in more nuanced ways.” As an example of how this might work, Norton cites the potential for collaboration between biomedical engineering — which currently has one supervising faculty member and no designated lab space — and biology, biochemistry and biophysics. “The design of this building has led to conversations about how you bring together biomedical engineering and cellular molecular biology, which have existed separately for a long time,” she says. “They can now come together because people are talking to each other, but also because the biomedical engineering lab is going to be adjacent to the cellular molecular biology lab.” Historically, blurring the boundaries between disciplines has led to some of the most impactful discoveries, Roberts says. But it’s even more vital now due to the emergence and pervasiveness of artificial intelligence. “That is probably the single biggest thing that is threatening jobs and the future of academia. The rapid advent of technology and the progress being made.” Because access to knowledge and information is already so simple, the role of education has to change. “It becomes less about how much I know and memorize and more about what I can do,” he says. The emphasis on hands‑on creating is the aspect of the building’s design that is potentially the most exciting. The building will boast makers' spaces and labs, offering everything from imaging and 3D printers to woodshop, medical device development, environmental exploration and robotics. These are where the best opportunities for collaboration might flourish. “I think they open up some opportunities that we just don’t really understand quite yet,” says Rick Olson, associate

“I think the way students learn and faculty teach to be successful in the coming years has to change,” says Chell Roberts, dean of the Shiley Marcos School of Engineering. “And the building promises to create space where that can happen.” Donald and Darlene Shiley have been avid and generous supporters of USD for decades. But this $75 million dollar contribution — announced in honor of the school’s 75th anniversary at the 2024 Founders Gala — is the largest in its history, and among the largest ever given to a Catholic university. Much of it is being used to establish the Shiley STEM Initiative, including state-of the-art facilities. Donald Shiley was a biomedical engineer who invented the Bjork-Shiley tilting disc heart valve. Mrs. Shiley

wants to honor his legacy in a truly impactful way. “I was thinking big because if you're going to do this, do it right,” she said. “I’d love to see another Donald come out of USD. And I think Donald would be pleased because it was always his idea that we’d give away all our money.” Creating a space that encourages innovative collaboration while still meeting the needs of faculty and students is its own unique challenge, says Roberts. “The tension in this whole design is that we still exist today in silos, and we’re only peeking into the future where we’re supposing we can change that.” As a way to address that concern, a stakeholder committee led by associate deans from each school formed five focus groups to look at

The building itself will be used as a teaching tool, not just as a space where students learn inside of its walls. Rooftop solar panels may serve as hands-on models for students from both faculties, showing them in real time how electricity is produced, how it's utilized and how the panels contribute to the ecosystem of a sustainable building. There are also ideas to include spaces where students will learn about sustainable food production and areas where scientists and engineers can learn about sustainable water usage as well as sediments, soil and pollution. The building will be a place for learning, experimenting and creating — designed specifically for the benefit of undergraduate students, as a space where they can interact and overlap, sharing classes and rooms and ideas and inspiration. “We hope that will lead to what some people call happy collisions or serendipitous interactions,” says Ron Kaufmann, associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences. Noelle Norton, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, describes the goal as generating synergies that can ideally ignite sparks. “It’s just talking in the hallways that will likely lead to a creative idea, that will lead to a course, that will lead to a curriculum requirement checked off for the

dean at the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering and Kaufmann’s co‑lead on the stakeholder committee. He does have some ideas, based on a look at previous capstone projects that may have benefitted from having access to the new structure. One such idea featured the development of an artificial intelligence-based app that can determine whether a species of beetles found in agricultural imports is safe, or requires further inspection. Another involved the design of a robotic device that can assemble very small medical implants to monitor eye pressure in glaucoma patients. The overlaps between engineering, computer science, plant science and biological science, as just a few examples, underline the advantages of shared space and shared knowledge.

Another case-in-point: “We put the biomedical lab right next to the cellular molecular biology lab. Maybe when you’re looking at coming up with artificial skin, or anything related to that cellular level type of work, the proximity has an impact,” Olson says. It’s impossible to predict what advances the new building will yield, but the excitement and interest the design process has generated suggests a level of imagination that will permeate its atmosphere, leading to the breakthroughs that Darlene Marcos Shiley hopes for. “To me, STEM education in San Diego is a natural,” she said. “Even if it wasn’t for Donald it would still be a natural. I want to know that we made an imprint. And I think the University of San Diego is the way to do it.”

05 IMAGINE•INNOVATE•INSPIRE