About the School
The Henry Samueli School of Engineering is one of the nation’s fastest growing engineering schools, attracting talented faculty and students from across the country and around the world. Its mission is to provide outstanding education to graduate and undergraduate students through a combination of classroom learning and laboratory research experience, distinguishing itself through an emphasis on cross-disciplinary research and education. Working in partnership with state and federal agencies and industry, the School promotes the transfer of research to applications that benefit society.
Focused Research
The School is equipped with excellent experimental facilities and a state-of-the-art computational infrastructure, occupying more than 210,000 square feet. It offers numerous research centers, institutes and facilities, including the Center for Pervasive Communications and Computing, the Integrated Nanosystems Research Facility, the National Fuel Cell Research Center, the UC Irvine Combustion Lab, the Center for Embedded Computer Systems, the Spray and Droplet Science and Technology Research Center, the Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing, the Facility for RF Design and Characterization, the Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics, and Micro/Nano Fluidics Fundamentals Focus Center.
The School’s faculty is also active in the
With more than 2,100 undergraduate students and 730 graduate students, the
The Department of Biomedical Engineering offers a broad array of exciting research and training opportunities with world-renowned researchers. Engineering focus areas include biomedical photonics/optoelectronics, biomedical nano- and microscale systems/fabrication, biomedical computation/modeling, and tissue engineering. These technology areas intersect with clinical areas of focus such as cardiovascular disease, the nervous system, cancer, and ophthalmology. Included in these opportunities are major campus resources at the Beckman Laser Institute (biophotonics), the
The Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science focuses research efforts in several areas. Chemical engineering activities concentrate in two areas: biotechnology and biomolecular engineering, which includes protein expression, metabolic engineering, bioreactor engineering, protein engineering, cell and tissue engineering, biomaterials, colloids, and drug delivery; and, transport phenomena, which includes fluid, heat and mass transport in biological systems; laser-induced transport processes with applications in microfluidics, biology, and medicine; transport of biological particles (i.e. viruses, bacteria, protozoa) through environmental systems.
Materials science areas include: synthesis, mechanical behavior, and characterization of advanced nanostructured materials; ceramics and sol-gel processing; device packaging and manufacturing; electronic and optical materials; lightweight structures and multifunctional materials; microbiological corrosion of metals and alloys; biomaterials; polymers and related nanotechnology and nanocomposites; creep and superplasticity; fuel cell and energy related system materials; device physics; and, coatings and multilayers.
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering focuses on three major areas of teaching and research: structural and geotechnical engineering, transportation systems, water resources, and environmental engineering. Structural and geotechnical engineering involves engineering mechanics, soil mechanics, geotechnical and earthquake engineering, structural dynamics, structural control, reliability and risk, composites and advanced materials, advanced sensors, non-destructive evaluation, smart structures, structural health monitoring, remote sensing, imaging and visualization, and civil infrastructure systems. Transportation systems focus on intelligent transportation systems and telematics, travel behavior, transportation planning, policy, systems analysis, energy and the environment, operations and management, logistics, and information technology. Water resources and environmental engineering research concentrates on hydrology, hydrologic remote sensing, water resources, water quality, contamination management, and pollution control.
The Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science is creating state-of- the-art technologies in computer science and engineering, computer system design, information theory, broadband communication systems, high-speed analog and digital circuit design, signal and image processing, electromagnetics, photonics, high-efficiency power electronic circuits, and alternative energy power generation. The department includes more than 20 research groups focused on areas as diverse as embedded systems, micro-electro-mechanical systems and nanotechnology, communication systems, machine intelligence, bio-chips, and neural and soft computing.
The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering focuses on the areas of combustion, flow physics, turbulence, energy and propulsion; environmental analysis; control, dynamics and guidance; robotics and automation; aerospace structures; and manufacturing and materials processing, including micro-electro-mechanical systems. The department is home to excellent experimental and computational facilities, including a robotics and automation laboratory, a biomechatronics laboratory, a micro-electro-mechanical systems laboratory, combustion and fuel-cell laboratories, a high Reynolds number mixing facility, a supersonic flow facility, and a large, low-speed wind tunnel.
Highly Cited Faculty
The Samueli School is home to eleven members of the National Academies. Additionally, more than a third of the School’s 105 faculty members have been elected Fellows in professional societies, and over the last decade, 21 professors have received National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Awards.
Cooperative Partnerships
The school’s corporate affiliates programs and other alliances with industry offer a vital connection to the future by providing an avenue for the continuous flow of new information, and access to a pool of new engineering talent. Membership in these groups enables corporations to mine the wealth of resources available at the school.
Nicolaos G. Alexopoulos joined the UC Irvine engineering faculty in 1997 as dean and professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Prior to UC Irvine, he was a faculty member in the Department of Electrical Engineering at UCLA from 1969 to 1996, where he also served as associate dean of faculty affairs and chair of the department.
He is the author of more than 250 professional papers, and he has served on the editorial boards of numerous professional journals and as editor-in-chief of Electromagnetics. Alexopoulos is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and is recognized as a highly cited author in computer science. He has received three IEEE Best Journal Publication awards, 10 of his publications have been selected for special volumes of outstanding contributions in the field, and five of his articles have been chosen as benchmark papers by design software companies. In 2006, Dr. Alexopoulos received an honorary doctorate from the National Technical University in Athens, Greece, and in February 2007, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in recognition of his outstanding contributions to “microwave circuits, antennas, and structures for low observable technologies, and for contributions in engineering education.”
Distinctions (2006-07)
Full-time faculty: 105
Research expenditures: $21.9 million
Undergraduate enrollment: 2,200
Graduate enrollment: 700
Ranked 37th in U.S.News and World Report’s 2008 listing of best engineering graduate schools
