Portland State Magazine Spring 2017

6 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE SPRING 2017 Where inventions are born PA R K B L O C K S SHASTINA HOLMES , a senior in physics, was building race cars as president of PSU’s Viking Motorsports while working at a shoe store to help pay for school. The two experiences provided inspiration for her design of a more comfortable, longer lasting high heel shoe that incorporates some of the same carbon fiber material used in high-tech cars. Holmes and her team took the idea to the next level through The Beta Project, a program in the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science. Each term, students pitch their ideas to a panel of faculty, mentors and students to win workspaces, advice and up to $1,000 to develop their inventions. Holmes' high-heeled prototype will need more time and money before it can step out onto the market. New building, new partnerships THE THREE largest public colleges in Portland are teaming up with the city to build a new $100 million education and health center in the heart of Portland State’s campus. The historic project will turn a parking lot at Southwest Fourth Avenue and Montgomery Street into a new home for the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health (Portland’s first school of public health), PSU’s Graduate School of Education, Portland Community College’s dental programs and a city bureau. The building is expected to open in September 2020, and at nine stories, it will be one of the tallest academic buildings on PSU’s main campus.