The Brown University School of Engineering is the

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

school of

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, a private

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...

research university located in

Providence Providence often refers to: * Providentia, the divine personification of foresight in ancient Roman religion * Divine providence, divinely ordained events and outcomes in Christianity * Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of Rhode Island in the ...

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

. Brown's engineering program is the third oldest civilian engineering program in the United States and the oldest undergraduate program in the Ivy League. The School of Engineering is noted for its historically prominent contributions to

continuum Continuum may refer to: * Continuum (measurement), theories or models that explain gradual transitions from one condition to another without abrupt changes Mathematics * Continuum (set theory), the real line or the corresponding cardinal number ...

and

applied mechanics Applied mechanics is the branch of science concerned with the motion of any substance that can be experienced or perceived by humans without the help of instruments. In short, when mechanics concepts surpass being theoretical and are applied and e ...

, originally led by European

émigré An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French ''émigrer'', "to emigrate". French Huguenots Many French Huguenots fled France followi ...

researchers in the 20th century. Brown's Division of Engineering was elevated in 2010 to its current status as a school. The Brown University School of Engineering awards undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees. The school additionally offers a 5th-year master program as well as a joint graduate program with the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

. Although undergraduate students may officially declare their concentration in engineering as late as the end of their sophomore year, students with an intention in concentration in engineering typically must begin the engineering curriculum their first semester at Brown. Brown_University_Engineering_Research_Center

Brown_University_Engineering_Research_Center

History

Brown offered its first engineering course in 1847, making the school's program the oldest undergraduate engineering program in the Ivy League and the third-oldest civilian engineering program in the United States. In 1850, the

civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...

curriculum was inaugurated as a focused one and a half year program. In 1903, engineering moved into its own new building on Lincoln Field. The current program was formed in 1916 from the combination of civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering departments. In 2010, the university elevated its Division of Engineering to its current status as the Brown University School of Engineering, making it the only undergraduate department at Brown with such status. In July 2011,

Lawrence Larson Lawrence E. Larson is an American electrical engineer, currently serving as acting provost of Brown University. Previously, he was the Sorensen Family Dean of Engineering and Founding Dean at the Brown University School of Engineering. He is a Fel ...

became the school's inaugural Dean. Prior to his appointment, Larson served as the chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the

Jacobs School of Engineering Jacobs may refer to: Businesses and organisations * Jacob's, a brand name for several lines of biscuits and crackers in Ireland and the UK *Jacobs (coffee), a brand of coffee *Jacobs Aircraft Engine Company, former American aircraft engine compan ...

at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

. Between 2014 and 2017, the school undertook a major expansion of its facilities, designing and constructing a new Engineering Research Center.

Undergraduate education

The Brown University School of Engineering offers

ABET The ABET (incorporated as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc.) is a non-governmental organization that accredits post-secondary education programs in applied and natural sciences, computing, engineering and engineering ...

-accredited engineering concentrations in

biomedical Biomedicine (also referred to as Western medicine, mainstream medicine or conventional medicine)

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wi ...

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

electrical Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

, environmental engineering,

materials Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geologic ...

, and

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

(Sc.B.). Also offered is a program in engineering-physics. In addition, the Brown School of Engineering offer a bachelor of arts degree in engineering.

Master's and Ph.D. programs

The Brown University School of Engineering offers Sc.M. programs in biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical sciences and computer engineering,

fluids In physics, a fluid is a liquid, gas, or other material that continuously deforms (''flows'') under an applied shear stress, or external force. They have zero shear modulus, or, in simpler terms, are substances which cannot resist any shear ...

and

thermal science ''Thermal Science'' is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal orientated to the basic research results in the fields of physics and chemistry. The journal was founded in 1997 year by the former Yugoslav Society of Heat Transfer Engineer ...

s, materials science, and mechanics of solids. An integrated five-year Sc.B./Sc.M. degree is also available. The Program in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship (PRIME) is also a one-year master's degree in technology entrepreneurship. The Brown University School of Engineering offers Ph.D. programs in biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical sciences and computer engineering, fluids and thermal sciences, materials science, and mechanics of solids. In 2020, the school partnered with the

's Division of Architecture and Design to launch a new joint Master of Arts in Design Engineering (MADE) program. The program is designed as an 11-month residential program and began in the summer of 2021.

Rankings

In its 2021 rankings, '' U.S. News & World Report'' ranked Brown as the 37th best undergraduate engineering school in the country. The School of Engineering graduate program ranked 51st. In 2019, Brown awarded the 7th highest percentage of undergraduate engineering bachelor’s degrees to women, at 47%.

Notable alumni

Graduates of the School of Engineering have become prominent scientists, astronauts, athletes, government officials, pioneers, entrepreneurs, CEOs, financiers, and scholars. Among the school's notable graduates in business are

Dara Khosrowshahi Dara Khosrowshahi ( fa, دارا خسروشاهی, ; born May 28, 1969) is an Iranian-American businessman and the chief executive officer of Uber. Khosrowshahi was previously CEO of Expedia Group, a company that owns several travel fare aggreg ...

'91, CEO of

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), package ...

and former CEO of

Expedia Expedia Inc. is an online travel agency owned by Expedia Group, an American online travel shopping company based in Seattle. The website and mobile app can be used to book airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruise ships, and vacat ...

;

Aneel Bhusri Aneel Bhusri (born February 14, 1966) is an American business executive. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Workday. He is also a partner at Greylock Partners and was a member of Intel's board of directors between 2014 and 2019. Bhusri h ...

'88, co-founder and co-CEO of Workday; Melanie Whelan '99, former CEO of

SoulCycle SoulCycle is a fitness company owned by Equinox Group which offers indoor cycling and spinning workout classes. It was founded in 2006, and has operations in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In early 2020, before the COVID-19 ...

;

John S. Chen John S. Chen (; born July 1, 1955) is a Hong Kong-American businessman serving as executive chairman and chief executive officer of BlackBerry Ltd. Previously, he served as the chief executive officer and president of Sybase, a software vendor s ...

'78, president and CEO of

Sybase Sybase, Inc. was an enterprise software and services company. The company produced software to manage and analyze information in relational databases, with facilities located in California and Massachusetts. Sybase was acquired by SAP in 2010; ...

and interim CEO of

Blackberry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy of ...

; George M.C. Fisher Sc.M. '64 Ph.D. '66, CEO of Motorola;

Theresia Gouw Theresia Gouw is an entrepreneur and venture capital investor in the technology sector. She worked at Bain & Company, Release Software and Accel Partners before co-founding Aspect Ventures, a female-led venture capital firm, in 2014. Gouw was name ...

'90, ''Forbes''

Midas List The ''Forbes'' Midas list is the annual ranking by ''Forbes'' magazine of the most influential and best-performing venture capital investors. Described by Kara Swisher as the "Oscars for venture capitalists in tech," the Midas List uses parameter ...

investor; and

Mary Lou Jepsen Mary Lou Jepsen (born 1965) is a technical executive and inventor in the fields of display, imaging, and computer hardware. Her contributions have had worldwide adoption in head-mounted display, HDTV, laptop computers, and projector products; ...

'87 Ph.D. '97. Notable alumni in academia and research include

Sangeeta N. Bhatia Sangeeta N. Bhatia (born 1968) is an American biological engineer and the John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at the Massachusetts ...

'90, John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

and HHMI Investigator;

Ayanna Howard Ayanna MacCalla Howard (born January 24, 1972) is an American roboticist, entrepreneur and educator currently serving as the dean of the College of Engineering at Ohio State University. Assuming the post in March 2021, Howard became the first wom ...

'93, dean of the

Ohio State University College of Engineering The Ohio State University College of Engineering, including the Knowlton School is the academic unit that manages engineering research and education at Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is ...

;

Ka Yee Christina Lee Ka Yee Christina Lee is a Professor of Chemistry and the Provost at the University of Chicago, where she succeeded Daniel Diermeier on February 1, 2020. She works on membrane biophysics, including protein–lipid interactions, Alzheimer's dise ...

(1985), Provost at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

; and Yang Wei Ph.D. '85, president emeritus of

Zhejiang University Zhejiang University, abbreviated as ZJU or Zheda and formerly romanized as Chekiang University, is a national public research university based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. It is a member of the prestigious C9 League and is selected into the na ...

. Other graduates in academia include

Tejal A. Desai Tejal Ashwin Desai (born June 3, 1972) is Sorensen Family Dean of Engineering at Brown University. Prior to joining Brown, she was the Deborah Cowan Endowed Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences at University of ...

'94, Dean of Engineering at Brown University; Kaliat Ramesh '85 Ph.D. '88, Alonzo G. Decker Jr. Professor of Science and Engineering at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

;

Lallit Anand Lallit Anand is the Warren and Towneley Rohsenow Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research focuses on solid mechanics and large deformation flow plasticity theory , plasticity theory. H ...

Ph.D. 1975, Warren and Towneley Rohsenow Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT; and Reda R. Mankbadi Ph.D. '79, Founding Dean of the Embry-Riddle College of Engineering. The school's alumni in aeronautics and space research and travel include

Thomas O. Paine Thomas Otten Paine (November 9, 1921 – May 4, 1992) was an American engineer, scientist and advocate of space exploration, and was the third Administrator of NASA, serving from March 21, 1969, to September 15, 1970. During his administratio ...

'42, third administrator of

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

(1969–1970); Byron K. Lichtenberg '69 fighter pilot and payload specialist; and

Brian Binnie William Brian Binnie (April 26, 1953 – September 15, 2022) was a United States Navy officer and one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites and flown from 2003 to 2004. Early life Bin ...

'75 Sc.M. '76, former United States Navy officer and test pilot for

SpaceShipOne SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched rocket-powered aircraft with sub-orbital spaceflight capability at speeds of up to 3,000 ft/s (900 m/s, 3240 km/h), using a hybrid rocket motor. The design features a unique "feathering" a ...

. Notable athletes to have graduated from the school include racecar driver

Mark Donohue Mark Neary Donohue Jr. (March 18, 1937 – August 19, 1975), nicknamed "Captain Nice," and later "Dark Monohue," was an American race car driver and engineer known for his ability to set up his own race car as well as driving it to victories. D ...

'59; football players Steve Jordan '82 and

James Develin James Rittenhouse Develin, Jr. (born July 23, 1988) is an American former professional football player who was a fullback. He played college football for Brown University as a defensive end. He was originally signed as an undrafted free age ...

'10; and olympic rowers

Dick Dreissigacker Richard Alan Dreissigacker (born March 26, 1947 in New Haven, Connecticut) is a former American Olympic rower and a founder of Concept2, a manufacturer of rowing equipment. While studying engineering at Brown University he took up rowing and wen ...

'69, Jamie Koven '95,

Igor Boraska Igor Boraska (born September 26, 1970 in Split) is a Croatian rower who won a bronze medal in the eights competition at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Early life Igor Boraska was born on September 26, 1970 in Split, SR Croatia, Yu ...

'95, and

Nikola Stojić 1998–2003 2003–2006 2007–present Nikola Stojić ( sr-cyr, Никола Стојић, born 15 December 1974 in Belgrade, SR Serbia, Yugoslavia) is a rower from Serbia, who competed in four consecutive Summer Olympics ...

'97. File:Dr. Thomas O. Paine - GPN-2002-000106.jpg,

'42 administrator of NASA during

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, an ...

File:Byron Lichtenberg.jpg, Byron K. Lichtenberg '69, engineer and astronaut File:Lallit Anand.png,

Ph.D. '75, of

File:Prime Minister Trudeau, John S. Chen.jpg,

'78, CEO of

File:Kaliat T. (KT) Ramesh (cropped).jpg, Kaliat Ramesh '85 Ph.D. '88, of

File:Aneel Bhusri (8518025145) (cropped).jpg,

'88, co-founder and CEO of Workday File:Sangeeta N. Bhatia-Heritage-Day-2019-115 (cropped).jpg,

'90, bioengineer at

, HHMI Investigator File:Theresia Gouw.jpg,

'90, ''Forbes''

investor File:Conférence de Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO d’UBER à l'Ecole polytechnique en date du 24052018 (28529262558) (cropped).jpg,

'91, CEO of

File:Ayanna M. Howard - SnoMote (cropped).jpg,

'93, Dean of Ohio State's College of Engineering File:Suzan LeVine, official State Department photo portrait.jpg, Suzan G. LeVine '93, American diplomat File:KQED Science Tejal Desai.jpg,

'94, Dean of Engineering at Brown University

References

Notes

{{Authority control Engineering schools and colleges in the United States Engineering universities and colleges in Rhode Island Brown University