Mission

The mission of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering is to provide our students with a well-rounded engineering education with specific emphasis on materials science and engineering in order to meet the needs of industry, academia and government; to conduct research at the frontiers of the field; and to provide an integrating and leadership role to the broad multi-disciplinary materials community.

Educational Objectives

The general objective of the Materials Science and Engineering undergraduate program is embedded in our mission statement - to provide to our students a well-rounded engineering education with specific emphasis on materials science and engineering that will meet the needs of industry, academia, and government. Specific program objectives have been established to attain this general objective:

• To produce graduates with the ability to apply the fundamentals of mathematics and the physical sciences.
• To produce graduates who have a general knowledge of all classes of engineering materials, but specific expertise in one of the sub-disciplines: ceramics, electronic and photonic materials, metals, polymers
• To produce graduates who have a first hand knowledge of the inter-relationships between processing, structure, properties and performance of materials
• To produce graduates who have the ability to define problems, including design problems, develop and evaluate economically feasible solutions from diverse knowledge bases, and implement an acceptable solution.
• To produce graduates who have the ability to function effectively in cross-functional teams, both within the materials discipline and in multidisciplinary teams.
• To produce graduates who are adept at using the modern tools of materials science and engineering, including instrumentation for characterizing the structure and properties of materials and computational hardware and software for analysis, design, and communication.
• To produce graduates who understand the global/societal context of engineering problems, understand their responsibility to their profession and society and the ethics associated with it, and understand the value of lifelong learning.

Program Outcomes

• Graduates will learn to apply a knowledge of mathematics and advanced science and engineering principles to materials systems.
• Graduates will learn to design and conduct experiments and to analyze and interpret data.
• Graduates will learn to design a process, a microstructure, or a component to satisfy system needs.
• Graduates will be able to function on multidisciplinary teams.
• Graduates will learn to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems.
• Graduates will understand professional and ethical responsibility.
• Graduates will be able to communicate effectively, both in writing and in speech.
• Graduates will gain the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context.
• Graduates will recognize the need for, and be able to engage in, lifelong learning.
• Graduates will have a knowledge of contemporary issues.
• Graduates will learn to use the experimental, analytical, statistical, and computational tools for engineering practice in the materials discipline.
• Graduates will learn the fundamental principles underlying and connecting the structure, processing, properties, and performance of materials systems.