The Department of Mechanical Engineering, part of the Institute of Technology, serves the state and the nation as a leading center of education, research, and innovation.
The Graduate Program
The National Research Council consistently ranks the department among the top ten in the country in the opportunities it offers to graduate students and in the quality of its faculty. The department culture is vigorous and progressive, an exciting place for graduate study and thesis research. More than 250 faculty, students, and staff actively conduct or support research and teaching. Graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and visiting scholars come from throughout the world to conduct research here. All share the enthusiasm and esprit de corps associated with working at the frontier of science and technology.
The M.S. and Ph.D. degree programs emphasize individual thesis and study projects closely supervised by a faculty member. Graduate instruction includes up-to-date core courses taught by top faculty at the forefront in the field. Ample opportunities also exist for graduate students to gain engineering research experience through partnerships with government and industry.
A new B.M.E./M.S. integrated degree program provides a smooth transition from undergraduate to graduate student. The program is structured in such a way as to allow students to earn a Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a Master's degree in mechanical or industrial engineering in five years.
The Undergraduate Program
A Bachelor's of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota prepares students for rewarding careers. Mechanical engineers work in such fields as automotive, transportation and materials handling, environmental and pollution control systems, refrigeration and cryogenics, power systems design, automation, system dynamics and control, computer-aided design and manufacturing, and production of machinery and consumer products. Mechanical engineers are engaged in design, development, research, testing, manufacturing, administration, marketing, consulting, and education.
ME undergraduates study engineering science and applied engineering based on courses in mathematics, physics and chemistry. Hands-on learning is an essential component of the undergraduate curriculum. Beginning with Introduction to Engineering and continuing throughout the undergraduate curriculum, students design, build, and test real hardware and analyze the results against ideal-world simulations.
The Co-op Program
The Mechanical Engineering Co-op program is a cooperative partnership between the University and industry, and is available during the last two years of undergraduate study. Co-op students complete three full-time industrial assignments with regular academic coursework. Participation in the program need not delay graduation, and often the experience accelerates the job search upon graduation.
Co-op students spend a full year with a company gaining the experience that leads to good jobs. Co-op students earn the respect of their colleagues and contribute to the value of their companies. Students do not join the program for the compensation, but it certainly helps to finance one's education.
The Faculty
The faculty represent a wide variety of backgrounds. In addition to mechanical engineering, faculty members hold doctorates in industrial engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics, robotics, chemical engineering, and electrical engineering.
A Strong Commitment to Teaching
"The department's strong commitment to excellent teaching at all levels is, in my experience, unprecedented," said Department Head Peter McMurry. Five of our current faculty members belong to the University's Academy of Distinguished Teachers, and commitment to exceptional teaching is an integral aspect of our departmental culture. Eight ME professors have received the Horrace T. Morse-University of Minnesota Alumni Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education. This unusually high number of awards given to one department reflects the true dedication of ME faculty members to excellent teaching. ME professors are able to maintain this excellent record despite the fact that they graduate more BSMEs per faculty member than any other leading ME department in the nation (about 200 per year total), while maintaining one of the top ten mechanical engineering research programs in the nation.
Research Cornerstones
The cornerstone of mechanical engineering's research program since the early 1950s has been in the thermal sciences, especially heat transfer. The department continues to be a world leader in thermal science and engineering research, and its work in this area has broadened to include world-renowned programs in plasma technology and particle technology. The department is now becoming recognized for its pioneering work in other areas including applied controls, biomedical engineering, design and industrial engineering.
Defining Mechanical Engineering of the Future
The new ME building was first on the University of Minnesota campus to have the year "2000" on its cornerstone. This symbolizes the exciting frontiers being explored in the research laboratories. ME faculty members and students are building machines having dimensions that are a tiny fraction of the diameter of a human hair and nanophase materials with dimensions a factor of a thousand smaller than that. They have developed high-tech snowplows that can clear the roads under Minnesota whiteout conditions, and they are developing numerical and theoretical tools for designing the factories and manufacturing systems of the future. They have developed devices for treating cancer and have invented a "gene gun" for injecting genetic material into the DNA, a technology that offers great promise for the treatment of disease.
While this may not all sound like mechanical engineering, research taking place here is defining mechanical engineering of the future. It is because the department is working on problems of the future that research funding brought in by ME faculty members has increased by 40 percent over the past few years, a period when federal support in more traditional areas of mechanical engineering has decreased by 40 percent. |
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