Innovation in Collaborative Research
BRIC Work Dr. Truell Hyde Builds on a Dream
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BY J O HN W HI T SE T T (‘82 )
ost of us think of a brick as a rectangular block of clay, hardened by heat, and used in building or paving. In basketball jargon, it refers to a shot that never had a chance of going in the basket – one that awkwardly clangs off the rim or backboard. But in Waco, Texas, the word is an acronym for the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative (BRIC) - an initiative developed by Dr. Truell Hyde. Dr. Hyde, a 1978 graduate of SNU, has served at Baylor for the past two-plus decades as a professor and Vice-Provost for Research. Opened in 2012, the BRIC is a 330,000 square foot facility that is the centerpiece of the Central Texas Technology & Research Park. It is a place where world-renowned scientists and researchers collaboratively work with faculty, graduate students,
and undergraduate students from a variety of fields on federally sponsored grants and scholastic projects. With the support of corporate partners, the BRIC provides a state-of-the-art space designed specifically for this purpose. Featuring world class laboratory and symposium spaces, the BRIC also provides elementary and secondary students exciting discovery experiences ranging from ‘research-on-display’ tours of active laboratories to interactions with museum-quality exhibits. Formerly a tire manufacturing plant that provided 1400 jobs for the Waco community, the BRIC has become a hub of activity where cutting-edge research in emerging technologies can be developed, some of life’s hard questions can be investigated and examined, and a future generation of scientists can be stimulated and inspired.
Dr. Hyde and the one of a kind, CASPER Plasma Krystl 4 analog instrument used by researchers to conduct physics investigations related to work being done on the International Space Station.
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SNU MAGAZINE | FALL 2021
SNU.EDU/ALUMNI
