The James Franck Institute provide is currently housed in the East Wing of the Ellen & Melvin Gordon Center for Integrative Sciences (GCIS) Building. The GCIS is a 430,000 square foot Interdivisional Research Building at 929 E 57th Street. The GCIS brings together faculty, staff, and research from the Physical and Biological Sciences Divisons as well as research institutes including the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the JFI, and the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics. The JFI supports research facilities including machine shops, materials preparation and instrumentation facilities, and computers needed for our research. We have a team of staff who run these facilities and provide support for the JFI members.
MRSEC Shared Facilities
The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) supports the Materials Preparation & Measurement Lab, Quantum Transport Lab, and other shared resources for sample fabrication, analysis, imaging, processing, patterning, and characterization.
JFI Student Machine Shop
Students, staff, and faculty are instructed in the use of saws, mills, drills, lathes, and measuring tools as well as in design and safety procedures. After grinding their own cutters and making a few simple parts, members of the JFI community are considered self-sufficient in machining metals and plastics and thus gain unsupervised access to the shop.
MCP Shop:
Monday & Tuesday 9am-2pm
The MCP shop contains manual equipment such as lathes, mills, drill presses, and shears, etc., but we also have a Boss Laser, Tormach CNC, and an Intamsys 3D printer.
GCIS Shop:
Wednesday & Thursday 9am-2pm
The GCIS shop contains the same manual tools as the MCP shop and has a ProtoMax waterjet.
All students must complete training before working in either shop. To schedule a training, please reach out to Shop Manager Luigi Mazzenga (lmazzenga@uchicago.edu).