Message From The Dean

Michael J. Chajes
Interim Dean

This is an exciting time for the University and the College.  We have a new President, Patrick Harker, who was formerly Dean of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.  He is a civil engineer by training who has brought incredible energy and a lot of new ideas to the University.  One of his first initiatives was to launch a strategic planning effort, with a web site set up to enable all of our constituents—from students, faculty, and staff to alumni and the larger community—to provide input to the process. We hope you will visit the site at http://www.udel.edu/strategicplanning/ and provide the Strategic Planning Committee with suggestions.

A common first semester is now providing incoming undergraduates with the opportunity to explore the various engineering majors before making a decision among the six disciplines in which we offer bachelor’s degrees.  Our undergraduate program does not include a separate department of bioengineering or biomedical engineering because we believe that the best preparation for a career at the interface of biology and engineering is a strong background in engineering coupled with solid exposure to biology.  We offer several paths that provide bioengineering training; more information about these options is available on the various departmental web sites.

Outstanding undergraduate research and study abroad programs continue to be hallmarks of the University of Delaware.  This year, engineering faculty will be offering Winter Session programs in Australia, Greece, and Turkey. Service-based learning is also growing at a rapid rate.  The new UD chapter of Engineers Without Borders has already become involved with a solar-powered potable water project in Cameroon.

For graduate students, UD offers the opportunity to join top-notch programs in engineering.  Our nearly 500 graduate students share state-of-the-art facilities and are teamed with faculty and postdoctoral researchers to address a broad spectrum of research problems.  Several of our programs are among the strongest in the country, and the web sites of the departments and our research centers provide an overview of what we do.

The College is fortunate to have an outstanding faculty.  We count among our numbers four members of the National Academy of Engineering, 21 named professors, and 19 NSF CAREER awardees over the past 11 years.  Research expenditures in the College were $46 million last year, reflecting the remarkable expertise of our faculty.  Several of our recent grants have been for major multidisciplinary efforts in areas including osteoarthritis, fuel cell technology, composite materials, neutron science, and solar power.