Mechanical engineering is concerned with the responsible development of products, processes, and power, at scales ranging from molecules to large and complex systems. Mechanical engineering principles and skills are involved at some stage during the conception, design, development, and manufacture of every human-made object with moving parts. Many innovations crucial to our future will have their roots in the world of mass, motion, forces, and energy—the world of mechanical engineers.

             Mechanical engineering is one of the broadest and most versatile of the engineering professions. This is reflected in the portfolio of current activities in the Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE), one that has widened rapidly in the past decade.

            Today, our faculty are involved in a wide range of projects, including designing tough hydrogels, using nanostructured surfaces for clean water and thermal management of microelectronics, developing efficient methods for robust design, the building of robotics for land and underwater exploration, creating optimization methods that autonomously generate decision-making strategies, developing driverless cars, inventing cost-effective photovoltaic cells, developing thermal and electrical energy storage systems, using acoustics to explore the ocean of one of Jupiter's moons, studying the biomimetics of swimming fish for underwater sensing applications, developing physiological models for metastatic cancers, inventing novel medical devices, exploring 3D printing of nanostructures and macrostructures, and developing coatings to create nonstick surfaces.