The Grainger College of Engineering is the engineering college of the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

. It was established in 1868 and is considered one of the original units of the school. Every engineering program in the college is ranked among the best in the US. and in the world. The department has historically spearheaded worldwide innovation in technology with inventions such as the

transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch e ...

, the

integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...

, the

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Electronics, device that Light#Light sources, emits light when Electric current, current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy i ...

, the first

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

s (

Mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

and

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

), and (

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

) all produced by students, faculty or alumni of the college. Engineering alumni founded

Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, wi ...

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

Yelp Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publish crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in San Fra ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

, Tesla and

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...

Campus

The College of Engineering is located at the northern terminus of the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

occupying the Bardeen Quadrangle, the Beckman Quadrangle, and many nearby areas. Green Street almost perfectly divides the

Engineering campus The Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Engineering Campus ( ms, Kampus Kejuruteraan) is located in Transkrian, Nibong Tebal, South Seberang Perai, Penang. The campus covers an area about 320 acres. It is located approximately 45 km from the ...

from the rest of the University, so engineers and the College of Engineering are often referred to as "North of Green."

Engineering Hall Engineering is the use of 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 range of more speciali ...

serves as the primary anchor point for the College of Engineering and houses administrative offices as well as academic facilities. Built in 1894, it is the oldest surviving building on the Engineering portion of campus. It was designed by George Bullard, a University alumnus as part of a University held architecture competition and is an example of the

Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...

style of architecture. The Bardeen Quad is home to the Grainger Engineering Library, the largest engineering library in the world with over 260,000 physical volumes and a substantial electronic repository. The building itself cost nearly $30 million and has 135,000 square feet (13,000 m²) of floor space. It serves in excess of 1.5 million people annually. It offers services including room reservations, computers, printing, scanning, copying, tutoring, and technology loans. On April 15, 2019, the College of Engineering was named Grainger College of Engineering after the Grainger Foundation. The Grainger Foundation donated $100 million and an overall donation of $300 million.

Departments

* Aerospace Engineering * Bioengineering *

Civil and Environmental 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 ...

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

* Electrical and Computer Engineering * Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering * Materials Science and Engineering *

Mechanical Science and Engineering The Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (MechSE) is one of 12 departments within the University of Illinois College of Engineering. The MechSE department was formed in 2006 through a ...

* Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering * Physics

Research

The College has the third highest per dollar research expenditure in the nation with over $202 million spent annually. The College is home to 26 research centers, 10 major

laboratories A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physicia ...

, and nine affiliate programs. In total the College employs 408 research faculty members, 2,681 graduate researchers, and over 1,200 staff members. Engineering at Illinois is the most cited institution in engineering worldwide, with the highest total citations to research papers.

Honors

In addition to the program as a whole ranking in top five of engineering schools, many of the departments within the College of Engineering are also highly ranked.

Undergraduate rankings

The

Undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-lev ...

programs in

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 ...

, agricultural & biological engineering, and materials engineering are considered to be the top such programs in the nation.

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 ...

computer engineering Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineers ...

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

engineering physics Engineering physics, or engineering science, refers to the study of the combined disciplines of physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, and engineering, particularly computer, nuclear, electrical, electronic, aerospace, materials or mechanical en ...

, and

environmental engineering Environmental engineering is a professional engineering discipline that encompasses broad scientific topics like chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, hydraulics, hydrology, microbiology, and mathematics to create solutions that will protect and a ...

consistently rank in the top five such programs in

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The aeronautical & astronautical engineering,

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

industrial engineering Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex process (engineering), processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, kno ...

, and

nuclear engineering Nuclear engineering is the branch of engineering concerned with the application of breaking down atomic nuclei ( fission) or of combining atomic nuclei (fusion), or with the application of other sub-atomic processes based on the principles of n ...

programs consistently rank within the top ten such programs in the nation.

Graduate rankings

The graduate programs in

, agricultural & biological engineering, and materials science & engineering offered by the college are considered to be one of the top two programs in their disciplines. Additionally, the graduate programs in mechanical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, and

consistently rank within the top five such programs in the nation. The graduate programs in aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, nuclear engineering, and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

consistently rank within the top ten such programs in the nation.

Faculty honors

The faculty of the College of Engineering has earned many honors over the course of the College's prestigious career. Currently 82 of the faculty hold named chairs or professorships, 34 are members of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

, 15 are members of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

, 15 are members of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

, two are Nobel Laureates, one is a National Medal of Science recipient, and one is a National Medal of Technology recipient.

Notable alumni

* William F. Baker, civil engineer * Richard Baraniuk, C. Sidney Burrus Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

and member of the

* Stephen A. Boppart, Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering and head of the Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory at the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

Alan Bovik Alan Conrad Bovik (born June 25, 1958) is an American engineer, vision scientist, and educator. He is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin), where he holds the Cockrell Family Regents Endowed Chair in the Cockrell School of ...

, Cockrell Regents Family Professor Endowed Chair in Engineering at

UT Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

and member of the

Fazlur Rahman Khan Fazlur Rahman Khan ( bn, ফজলুর রহমান খান, ''Fozlur Rôhman Khan''; 3 April 1929 – 27 March 1982) was a Bangladeshi-American structural engineer and architect, who initiated important structural systems for skyscrape ...

, engineered the John Hancock Center and Sears Tower; considered to be the Albert Einstein, Einstein of structural engineering and the Greatest Structural Engineer of the 20th Century *Arvind Krishna, chairperson, chairman and chief executive officer, CEO of IBM *Mark Hersam, 2014 MacArthur Fellows Program, MacArthur Fellow and Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University *Sergio Verdú, information theorist, Shannon Award Laureate (2007), and member of the

and National Academy of Sciences *Alumni have created companies such as Netscape Communications,

, Oracle Corporation, Siebel Systems, Lotus Software,

, and Tesla, Inc.

Leadership

Deans of the College of Engineering through the years include: * William Schowalter, 1989-2001 * David E. Daniel, 2001-2005 * Ilesanmi Adesida, 2006-2012 * Andreas C Cangellaris, 2013-2018 * Rashid Bashir, 2018–Present

Engineering Open House

The College of Engineering opens its doors to the public annually during Engineering Open House (EOH), the largest student-run event on the University of Illinois campus. Engineering Open House typically features over 250 student project exhibits, four design contests (College, High School, Middle School, Grade School), appearances by local and national celebrities, entertainment, competitions for visitors, and prizes. In 2002, Bill Nye was a featured guest at Engineering Open House. In 2020 and 2021, Engineering Open House was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

EOH dates

* 100th Annual: April 8–9, 2022 – Theme: The Power of Us * 99th Annual: March 8–9, 2019 – Theme: Dare to Defy * 98th Annual: March 9–10, 2018 – Theme: Drafting the Future * 97th Annual: March 10–11, 2017 – Theme: Illuminate New Horizons * 96th Annual: March 11–12, 2016 – Theme: The STEM of Innovation * 95th Annual: March 13–14, 2015 – Theme: Electrifying Engineering * 94th Annual: March 14–15, 2014 – Theme: Transform Your World * 93rd Annual: March 8–9, 2013 – Theme: Imagine the Impossible * 92nd Annual: March 9–10, 2012 – Theme: Dream. Design. Discover. * 91st Annual: March 11–12, 2011 – Theme: Defining the future * 90th Annual: March 12–13, 2010 – Theme: Integrating knowledge, deriving genius * 89th Annual: March 13–14, 2009 – Theme: Unlocking Potential; Featured speaker: Grant Imahara from The Mythbusters * 88th Annual: March 7–8, 2008 – Theme: Sparking Curiosity * 87th Annual: March 9–10, 2007 – Theme: Inspiring Innovation * 86th Annual: March 10–11, 2006 – Theme: Beyond Imagination * 85th Annual: March 11–12, 2005 – Theme: Reinventing Reality * 84th Annual: 2004 Theme: Engineering Ingenuity * 83rd Annual: 2003 – Theme: Create, Innovate, Fascinate * 82nd Annual: March 8–9, 2002 – Theme: Free Your Mind; Featured speaker: Bill Nye * 81st Annual: March 2–3, 2001 – Theme: Unearthed time capsule from 1975. * 80th Annual: March 3–4, 2000 – Theme: Dawn of a New Age * 79th Annual: 1999 – Theme: Millennium of Innovation * 78th Annual: 1998 – Theme: Carnival of the Mind * 77th Annual: 1997 – Theme: Imagine That * 76th Annual: 1996 – Theme: Re-Engineering The World * 75th Annual: 1995 – Theme: 75 Years of Innovation * 74th Annual: 1994 – Theme: Above and Beyond * 73rd Annual: 1993 – Theme: Forging New Frontiers * 72nd Annual: 1992 – Theme: Unleashing Tomorrow's Potential * 71st Annual: 1991 – Theme: Looking Beyond the Horizonhttps://archives.library.illinois.edu/erec/.../4167184/.../History%20of%20EOH.pptx * 70th Annual: 1990 – Theme: Dare to Discover * 69th Annual: 1989 – Theme: Reviving the Dream * 68th Annual: 1988 – Theme: Accept the Challenge * 67th Annual: 1987 – Theme: Shaping Our World * 66th Annual: 1986 – Theme: In Search of Solutions * 65th Annual: 1985 – Theme: Method to the Madness * 64th Annual: 1984 – Theme: Developing Tomorrow – Today * 63rd Annual: 1983 – Theme: Responding to Reality * 62nd Annual: 1982 – Theme: Magic of Technology * 61st Annual: 1981 – Theme: Building on Dreams * 60th Annual: March 7–8, 1980 – Theme: Answers for the 80's * 59th Annual: 1979 – Theme: Target Tomorrow * 58th Annual: 1978 – Theme: Spearhead of Progress * 57th Annual: 1977 – Theme: Engineering: Integrating the Sciences * 56th Annual: 1976 – Theme: Revolutions in Engineering * 55th Annual: 1975 – Theme: 2001: An Engineering Odyssey * 54th Annual: 1974 – Theme: It's a Man-Made World * 53rd Annual: 1973 – Theme: Engineering Makes a World of Difference (motorola shows first cellphone) * 52nd Annual: March 10–11, 1972 – Theme: Engineering – Key to Survival * 51st Annual: 1971 – Theme: The Engineer and Our Environment

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Illinois Urbana-Champaign Engineering, University Of Buildings and structures of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Engineering Educational institutions established in 1868 Engineering schools and colleges in the United States Engineering universities and colleges in Illinois University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign colleges and schools, Engineering 1868 establishments in Illinois W. W. Grainger