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MARTHA POLLACK: Good afternoon, everybody. It is really my great pleasure to welcome our friend Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to Cornell today as we celebrate what's really an amazing milestone for CHESS, our Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source. But before I say anything about CHESS, I want to say a heartfelt thank you on behalf of Cornell to Senator Schumer for his leadership throughout the last two years, and then some during this COVID-19 pandemic.
I was thinking back exactly two years ago today. Cornell was very different, much quieter than it is today. Like all of our peer institutions, we had sent all of our students home as the coronavirus spread throughout the world, and there was just complete uncertainty about what was coming next. But Senator Schumer and the support of Congress truly helped us keep moving forward, first with the CARES Act, then CARES two, and finally with the Rescue Plan Act.
That assistance made a tremendous, tremendous difference to so many of our students, enabling them to manage a cascade of unexpected events and ensuring that the crises that had upended their lives and their semester did not derail their education. And federal assistance to state and local governments has been invaluable in helping our Cornell and Ithaca communities to recover from the many shocks of the past two years. So on behalf of all of our faculty and staff, and especially our students and their families, I really would like to thank Senator Schumer.
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Now, from the very beginning of this pandemic, we made a commitment at Cornell to base all of our decisions on science and hard data. And whatever lies ahead through this pandemic and beyond it, we know that we're going to need new science, new knowledge, and new discoveries to guide us. And frankly-- and I say this-- I was saying this just before to CHESS-- to CHESS-- to Joel. CHESS is one of the crown jewels of scientific exploration here at Cornell.
More than 40 years, it has operated under the auspices of the Cornell Laboratory for Accelerator-Based Sciences and Education-- CLASSE-- drawing thousands of scientists from across disciplines to Ithaca to use its high energy X-rays for their research. And as the only light source of its kind based at a university, CHESS has a unique role to play in research and education, enabling the discoveries that advance X-ray science, designing the innovations that improve the capacity of the synchrotron to solve problems, and training the next generation of scientists and innovators.
Senator Schumer deeply understands and appreciates the vital role that CHESS plays at Cornell and beyond, and he has been instrumental in ensuring that CHESS remains available, helping keep the United States at the forefront of global scientific exploration. A decade ago the National Science Foundation was deciding whether to continue its support of CHESS, and Senator Schumer stepped forward in support of this incredibly relevant and productive facility.
His advocacy was instrumental to the NSF's acceptance of a renewal proposal from CHESS, one that survived the strictest merit review by a skeptical agency. If not for that advocacy, none of us would be standing here today. And five years later, when NSF told CHESS to find other partners to fund its operations, Senator Schumer stepped up again and supported our vital partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory.
So it is only fitting that he is here with us today. And I am delighted to welcome him to announce the groundbreaking of the next phase of CHESS story's history. So please join me in the warmest of welcomes for Majority Leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer.
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CHUCK SCHUMER: Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Now, first, so when I was here about a year ago, COVID was still raging. The former mayor, Mayor Myrick gave me this mask. And I wore it all over Washington, and it went viral. It says Ithaca is gorges. And in fact, when I was a high school student, I took a course up here-- biology.
I lived in South Baker Hall 202. And my roommate became my college roommate, and still one of my closest friends. It was a great summer. And I remember my first real girlfriend, and we went to all the gorges. Those were nice places to walk out. They were great places.
So anyway, it's great to be back. I love Cornell, I love Ithaca, and I love Tompkins County. And now this is great news about CHESS. First, I want to thank Martha. She has done a fabulous job as president of this crown jewel-- not just of New York.
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Cornell is the crown jewel not just of New York and not just of America, but really of the world because of all the great research that's done here. And I want to thank so many others who are here-- our provost, Kotlikoff, Mike; Emanuel Giannelis, the vice president for research; Joel Malina, vice president for university relations; Joel Brock, director of CHESS; and our great new assembly member, Anna Kelles, who I've worked very closely with. I'm so glad you're here.
We have Deborah Dawson, our vice chair of the county legislature. Thank you for being here, Deborah. We also have Laura Lewis, the acting mayor of Ithaca; Rod Howe, the supervisor of the town of Ithaca; and Todd Bruer, president of Tompkins Building Trades, Tompkins Cortland County Building Trades. And of course, when things are built, our building trades do it-- as well as our Ithaca fire chief Tom Parson. So thank you very much-- appreciate everybody being here.
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Now, I'm going to talk about CHESS in a minute, but-- and well, I'll open up. So as you know, this has been a 10-year fight. And 10 years ago, they were going to close CHESS down. I worked very hard with Cornell to make sure that that didn't happen. We had all the merits on our side, but when the budget cutters and the axes come in, science and merit don't always win. My job was to see that they at least gave it a fair hearing, and that was that.
But today is great news, because we're finally able to break ground on the expansion of the facility due to $32 million in National Science Foundation funding that I delivered to build the new beamline. So this will mean over 150 new good-paying jobs on top of the 150 supported at the lab here. But much more important [INAUDIBLE] the jobs are very important-- is just the research that's going to come out of this that's going to affect so many different things.
This is a long journey, and I'm going to say more about it, but I do want to say this. One of my goals-- I love New York. You know that. I love every corner of it. I visit every county every year. COVID never stopped me from doing that. And I am now Majority Leader, first New York Majority Leader ever. And that--
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That enables me to deliver more for New York than I have been able to in the past. We're always working hard on it. So Senator Moynihan was a mentor to me. He understood science as well. And he always decried the fact that New York was what he called a donor state. We sent more money to Washington than we got back. This is the first year that we are a donee state. For every dollar we sent, we got $1.59 back.
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Yeah. It's good to have the Majority Leader from New York. Anyway, and that included lots of money for this area. In fact, just last month I got $800,000 for the Ithaca Activity Center, which is going to be well-used, mayor and assembly member. We got $16 million to the city of Ithaca, $19 million to Tompkins County. They didn't want to give any state and local aid. Our governments were hurting. I insisted, and we got it.
And there's going to be a lot more coming because of the bipartisan infrastructure bill. And so that's great, but this research facility is sort of what, in many ways, Cornell and Ithaca are all about-- cutting-edge research that the rest of the world follows and needs. And so let me give you a history of this.
So, for the press, CHESS is a national user facility. That means people from all over come and use it, not just Cornellians. I don't even know if they get first on the list. They may not. No, they don't. OK. But any case, it's a high-tech X-ray beam. It's only one of two in the whole United States. And these machines are for pure research, but out of the pure research comes amazing discoveries that help us.
CHESS has created discoveries that led to two Nobel prizes, amazingly enough. It supports our military. It strengthens our American manufacturing. But as I said, in 2012, they wanted an X it out. When I heard this, knowing of how important CHESS is, I called up NSF officials in the White House, and I said we need to preserve it. It took a lot of persuading, a lot of phone calls, a lot of persistence, but finally they heeded my call and they reversed the decision to end federal support.
And then, as I said, earlier this year we fought for continued federal funding through NSF. That included $8.5 million coming to CHESS this year from the Defense Department. Even the Defense Department knows how important this research is. And so now we're not talking about the loss of CHESS. We instead talking about growing CHESS, and the great jobs that come with it.
So that is a great thing. And there's going to be more to come. As you know, I'm the author of something called-- it was called the Endless Frontiers Act. It's now called USICA. We want to invest $200 billion in cutting-edge sciences. They are the future of our country.
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I called it the Endless Frontier Act, because Vannevar Bush was the Secretary of the Army, and after World War II, he said science is the endless frontier. America should invest in it. We invested in NSF and created the greatest pharmaceutical industry in the world. We invested in DARPA and-- sorry-- NIH and created the best pharmaceutical industry in the world. We invested in NSF and DARPA and created tech, created the internet and the greatest tech industry in the world.
Investing in science really matters in terms of-- and we certainly don't want an authoritarian country making the new rules on cutting-edge science. So this USICA bill-- so we used to call it Endless Frontiers. I love that name. But a lot of people said, what does that mean? They thought it was about covered wagons or something like that.
ANNA KELLES: Star Trek--
CHUCK SCHUMER: Star Trek-- yeah. So now it's called USICA, the United States Innovation and Competition Act. But an NSF directorate would invest heavily in places like AI, quantum computing, clean energy, semiconductors, cybersecurity, and so many other things. And a new $10 billion regional tech hub will allow places like Ithaca to compete on at least one of 18 National hubs. So this is going to be a great thing as well.
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And since Cornell's record, particularly on the-- you do great on NIH, but on the NSF side is enormous. So an investment in NSF will benefit Cornell probably more on a per capita basis than any, any other place. So we're here today because Chess is going to expand. The new $32 million that NS gave to add another-- what do you call it, line? Line-- and it's going to create science that's going to make all of our lives better, as well as creating jobs here and continuing Cornell to be one of the centers of physical science research in the world. So it's great to be here, and I was proud to play a role in it. Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
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CHUCK SCHUMER: OK, who's next? I guess our next speaker is-- no, it's--
AUDIENCE: Joel Brock--
CHUCK SCHUMER: Who?
AUDIENCE: Joel Brock--
AUDIENCE: Joel Brock--
CHUCK SCHUMER: Joel Brock-- he is fourth on my list, but I guess-- and he's director of the lab. Joel--
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JOEL BROCK: Thank you, Senator Schumer. Thank you, President Pollack. Your support speaks volumes for the state of science at CHESS, at Cornell, and for the scientific future of our country. I'm proud to say that, with the incredible support from Cornell University, CHESS is on a roll. [INAUDIBLE] facility and especially the high magnetic field project, which we're celebrating today, are clear evidence of the strong and enduring partnership between CHESS and the National Science Foundation.
Similarly, the MacCHESS program's clear evidence of our strong and enduring partnership with the National Institutes of Health and NYSTAR. And the new material solutions network at CHESS is due to our new partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory-- all of this in the context of a university-based user facility.
Cornell has a rich history of studying and advancing synchrotrons and particle accelerators. This month marks the 75th anniversary of the first observation of synchrotron light, which, by the way, happened in Schenectady at GE Research. OK? Since that time, very early days, Cornell has played a key role in the development of synchrotron radiation, and then been integral to the development and advancement of synchrotrons. This is true. We're entering our 43rd year of operations.
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And as we do that, we're honored to receive continued federal support. The vast majority of that funding supports people. This is CHESS-- sitting out there, is the people-- these are the people who create and provide the advanced tools supporting the research-- the critical research of thousands of scientists from all across the country.
In order to meet the serious challenges we face-- economic competitiveness, climate change, deadly diseases, world hunger-- we need to provide top scientists with state-of-the-art research tools. CHESS brings these top scientists to Cornell in order to further their research. They bring proteins that reveal new ways to combat COVID and fight cancer.
They bring battery cells able to store charge far beyond what's currently possible. They bring structural materials that allow us to perform space travel in the future with lightweight, yet structurally sound materials. This research is going to shape our collective future. And soon researchers are going to be able to study materials under intense magnetic fields, and this research is going to unlock the quantum secrets which we don't even know how to describe yet.
So furthermore, CHESS really takes great pride in educating the scientists of tomorrow. Each year we welcome hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students to CHESS. And in the high magnetic field project, for example, four graduate students from the University of Puerto Rico are working side by side with our scientists developing the tools and techniques that will be used.
So many of you don't know this, but my day job is I'm a professor of engineering. A not so well-known fact about engineering is that, for the last five years, we've been at gender parity at the undergraduate level.
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Additionally, 22% of our undergraduates come from groups historically underrepresented in engineering, and 19% are the first persons in their family to receive a university degree.
CHUCK SCHUMER: That's great. Bravo.
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JOEL BROCK: These investments in CHESS not only allow us to build a world-class research infrastructure, but enable us to develop a technical workforce of the future that reflects the full diversity of the country. Next, we're in a transformative time for research universities and facilities. There's a growing emphasis on innovation-driven research, translation, and external impact, all while preserving a focus on fundamental research, scholarship, and education.
The recent creation of the new technology innovation and partnerships director at the National Science Foundation, whose goal is to empower all Americans to participate in the US research and innovation enterprise, is tangible evidence of this transformation.
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From my perspective, CHESS and Cornell University are in an exceptional position to lead the nation and be a model in this new paradigm.
CHUCK SCHUMER: Great. Thank you.
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JOEL BROCK: In closing, I'd like to thank you, Senator Schumer.
CHUCK SCHUMER: Thank you, Joel.
JOEL BROCK: Thank you, President Pollack. It's an honor to work alongside my colleagues at CHESS, fully knowing that we have your complete support. Thank you very much.
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So now I'd like to introduce New York State Assemblymember, Anna Kelles.
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ANNA KELLES: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you. I just want to say thank you. You guys are so cool. I wish I could hang out with you all day long. I got about a 30-second from Joel, a 30-second class on what is done here. Thank goodness I have some science background. I couldn't keep up with you, but I held on to a couple of threads, and it was amazing what's done here.
I think people don't realize the breadth of research that's done here. We hear about the synchrotron and we think space, and that's pretty much as far as it goes for most people. But he was describing techniques that sounds like archaeological digs, where you can take laser to be able to read the print that is on scrolls that cannot be open, because there is metal components of the material that was used to write it? Am I correct? Which is fascinating-- it sounds like Indiana Jones. So this place is that cool.
Other things that you talked about really briefly were the fact that you can track and trace materials-- metals through plants, but without damaging the plants, which I think is really important for selective breeding-- hugely important in the agricultural sector. You don't think of CHESS and think of agriculture. So the breadth of the material that is studied and researched-- you also talked about medical being here as well.
And I loved the idea of the research being done here to create safety in space travel and exploration, which really does actually sound like Star Trek to me. So I'm going to hold that in my mind as where you all are going, taking us to the endless frontier. Is that what it's called? So I'm going to keep that name for me anyway in my head, so I appreciate it.
CHUCK SCHUMER: [INAUDIBLE]
ANNA KELLES: Absolutely. This place is amazing. This place is necessary, and this place is so Cornell. I try to stay very neutral with all of my constituents, but my parents both went to school here. They met here. They fell in love. They got married. My sister got her PhD here in evolutionary biology and mathematics. I was a professor here in nutrition and human ecology.
So I dare say I am a Cornellian about three layers deep, and I may be about four layers. So almost all of me is Cornellian. And I'm so proud of this place. I'm so proud of the work that's done. And I do understand that the work that you have done at the federal level to make sure that this place thrives so that we can be at that endless frontier--
CHUCK SCHUMER: Right.
ANNA KELLES: --is to you, Senator Schumer. So thank you from me, from everyone here. This is wonderful, deeply appreciated. Hopefully that will continue into the future to be one of the cutting-edge facilities. You are well on your way, and thank you. I'm so proud to be here and so proud to support.
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[CHATTER]
US Senator Charles Schumer visits CHESS, alongside Cornell President Martha Pollack and CHESS Director Joel Brock.CHESS is one of five high-energy synchrotron sources in the world, and only one-of-two in the United States. With recent funding from the National Science Foundation for a High-Magnetic-Field X-ray beamline, and continued federal and state support, CHESS is poised to broaden its role as an integral resource for world-class science at Cornell.
