The University of Miami’s efforts to study the impact of hurricanes on buildings received a boost on Monday by way of a $15 million grant from the U.S. Commerce Department. </p><p>The stimulus money grant — the largest for the school in recent history — will go toward the construction of a new, $48 million research facility at the UM’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Virginia Key, a place where scientists and researchers will now dissect hurricane-generated winds, waves and storm surges. </p><p>The construction project already had $28 million in matching funds. </p><p>“We are thrilled with the prospect of this new research building, which will help us further investigate how hurricanes and other extreme weather phenomena affect our natural and man-made environment,” said Dr. Roni Avissar, dean of the Rosenstiel School. </p><p>The project will be part of an integrated seawater laboratory building that will also house a state-of-the-art Marine Life Science Center, set to be completed in the summer of 2012. </p><p>Projects such as UM’s “provide a major boost to scientific research. ... and offer construction jobs to an area,’’ said U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke in a news release. </p><p>UM was one of only four universities to receive a slice of a total of $55 million in federal grant money from the department’s National Institute of Standards & Technology for the construction of research buildings. </p><p>Others receiving grant money: </p><p>• Auburn University in Alabama won $14.4 million for a Center for Advanced Science, matched by an equal amount. </p><p>• William Marsh Rice University in Texas received $11.1 million for the new Brockman Hall for Physics, matched by $33.4 million. </p><p>• The University of North Carolina Wilmington received $15 million for a new facility for the Marine Biotechnology, matched by an equal amount. </p><p>The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided funding for program aimed at furthering the construction of new or expanded research science buildings. </p><p>For UM, the grant represents the second awarding of stimulus money to its marine school in days. </p><p>Last week, a grant for $82,128 was awarded for a summer research experiment focused on the study of sea hares, a large marine snail with a simple nervous system. Students and teachers will focus on improving egg quality in the slugs. The sea hares are used to conduct research on selected aspects of life history and neurophysiology of this species. </p><p>The National Resource for Aplysia, based at Rosenstiel, raises and ships as many as 30,000 of these slugs per year to labs across the United States and the world for research in neurobiology and behavior. </p><p>“It’s just a coincides that these two federal grants came in at about the same time,” said Barbara Gonzalez, spokeswoman for the marine school. “We’re very excited.”