Facilities

Buildings

Hardaway Hall

With increased enrollment, the College of Engineering had outgrown B.B. Comer Hall by 1930. With the assistance of funds from the Public Works Administration, Hardaway Hall was built in 1936 and named after the University’s first full-time engineering professor, Col. Robert A. Hardaway. This space provided labs and classrooms for the mechanical and civil engineering programs.

H.M. Comer

H.M. Comer Hall opened in 1962 as the Mineral Industries Building. H.M. Comer Hall was named after Hugh Moss Comer, the son of Gov. Braxton Bragg Comer, a Birmingham industrialist who served as the first chairman of the Greater University Development Campaign. H.M. Comer became home to civil, chemical, metallurgical and mineral engineering.

After 18 months of extensive renovations, H.M. Comer Hall reopened in August 2018 as the home of the College of Engineering’s administration. The building includes the Patterson Welcome Center, the ACIPCO Engineering Career Development Center, the Brasfield and Gorrie Advising Center, the Dean’s office, External Affairs and Development, Financial Affairs, Information Technology and Engineering Services, and the offices for all seven academic departments.

Science and Engineering Complex

The Science and Engineering Complex is home to all freshman chemistry instructional laboratories, biological sciences teaching and research labs, faculty and students from the chemical and biological engineering and computer science departments, science teaching labs for the College of Education, and space for the Science in Motion biology program.

Shelby Hall

Dedicated in 2004, Shelby Hall is one of UA’s largest academic buildings with more than 200,000 square feet. The pentagon-shaped hall is one of the most sophisticated campus science facilities in the nation and is home of the department of chemistry and UA research coalitions and centers in transportation, geosciences, energy, biosciences, chemical and material sciences.

Shelby Hall has more than 70 research labs, five teaching labs, three theater-style lecture halls, 40 offices for faculty and professional staff, and 80 offices for graduate students. In addition, an on-site glass blowing facility creates glassware for use in research projects.

Engineering research areas in Shelby Hall include software engineering.

South Engineering Research Center

Opened in January 2012, the South Engineering Research Center is the first building dedicated solely to the College of Engineering since H.M. Comer Hall was completed in 1960. The SERC, as it is abbreviated, sits across the new Science and Engineering Quad from Shelby Hall and the Science and Engineering Complex, as part of UA’s suite of research hubs designed to encourage collaboration across scientific disciplines

The three-story building has 175,000 square feet. There are seven large multimedia classrooms that include two with 40 seats, three with 50 seats and two lecture halls seating 90 people. There are more than 40 research and instructional labs including nine flexible-use instructional labs that can seat 36 students each. There is office space for 38 faculty and staff members and about 145 graduate students along with numerous meeting and conference rooms. Five of the College’s departments have office space in SERC, and faculty from the entire College use the classroom and instructional labs.

North Engineering Research Center

The fourth and final phase of the science and engineering complex opened in fall 2013. The four-story building has about 206,000 gross square feet that includes 59 research laboratories, five instructional labs and a 7,000-square-foot clean room. Used nearly entirely by the College of Engineering, the North Engineering Research Center focuses on research in materials characterization and technology, specifically in structural characterization, composite and nanocomposites, coating and corrosion, materials processing, welding and joining, as well as electronic, magnetic and photonic devices.

Rodgers Library for Science and Engineering

The Rodgers Library for Science and Engineering contains more than 220,000 books and bound journals and provides access to numerous specialized databases with electronic journals. The Rodgers Library was built in 1990 and named after Dr. Eric Rodgers, who was a physics professor and the dean of the graduate school from 1958 to 1971, and his wife Sarah Rodgers, who was a statistics professor at UA. The science collection from Lloyd Hall and the engineering collection from the Bevill Building were transferred to Rodgers.

The Tom Bevill Energy, Mineral and Material Science Research Building

The Tom Bevill Energy, Mineral and Material Science Research Building opened in 1990 as the first major energy research center in the Southeast and the first UA facility dedicated solely to research. It is named after U.S. Rep. Tom Bevill, who was instrumental in obtaining federal funding for the building. The 217,000-sqaure-foot facility is home to the geological sciences, environmental engineering labs, transportation engineering, metallurgical engineering and part of the aquatic biology program.

Foundry

Located between Hardaway Hall and the old Bureau of Mines building, the foundry provides space and facilities for teaching, research and service to metal-casting and processing industries for students in the College of Engineering. The foundry is home to the Metal Casting and Solidification Research Facility.

The facility also adjoins a foundry used by the College of Arts and Sciences, and students from both colleges share expanded and renovated collaborative space. Students and faculty in both colleges learn from one another about the different kinds of investment, or mold-making, processes, as well as how to work with additional kinds of metals and alloys for different purposes.

Machine Shop

The Machine Shop is located directly behind Hardaway Hall and in front of the Foundry. The staff offers help to students on their senior projects with the machinery located in the shop. It is also home to a key shop.

Paty Hall

Paty Hall is located at 210 McCorvey Drive across the street from the Ferguson Center parking lot just south of Lakeside Dining Hall. The Freshman Engineering Program at The University of Alabama, located in Paty, is the designated engineering program for incoming freshman students as well as new transfer students to UA’s College of Engineering. This comprehensive program enhances the sense of community and belonging by the students and improves the instruction of and the introduction to the disciplines of engineering and computer science. The overarching goal is for students to be excited about a career in engineering or computer science and be prepared with the core knowledge in math, science, English and engineering to be successful in their later years on campus.

Cyber Hall

Cyber Hall is located on the northern section of the Bryce property at 248 Kirkbride Lane. It is the location of the College of Engineering’s Center for Advanced Public Safety, The University of Alabama Police Department and the College of Arts and Sciences’ Joint Electronic Crimes Task Force and the vice president for research and economic development’s Cyber Institute.

CAPS is committed to using state of the art technologies for research, software development and outreach to improve public safety. Computer Science faculty members perform research on cutting-edge approaches to solving the many data and information problems, while a number of full-time professionals direct software design and development. At the same time, CAPS identifies outstanding graduate and undergraduate students to participate on these projects.