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Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a
private Private or privates may refer to: Music * "In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorded ...
research university A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are "the key sites of Knowledge production modes, knowledge production", along with "intergenerational ...
in
Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by
Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...
as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology and began granting four-year degrees. In 1967, it became Carnegie Mellon University through its merger with the
Mellon Institute of Industrial Research The Mellon Institute of Industrial Research was a research institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that became part of Carnegie Mellon University. It was founded in 1913 by Andrew Mellon and Richard B. Mellon as part of the University of Pittsbur ...
, founded in 1913 by
Andrew Mellon Andrew William Mellon (; March 24, 1855 – August 26, 1937), known also as A. W. Mellon, was an American banker, businessman, industrialist, philanthropist, art collector, and politician. The son of Mellon family patriarch Thomas Mellon ...
and Richard B. Mellon and formerly a part of the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
. The university consists of seven colleges, including the College of Engineering, the School of Computer Science, and the
Tepper School of Business The Tepper School of Business is the business school of Carnegie Mellon University. It is located in the university's campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The school offers degrees from the undergraduate through doctoral levels, in addition to ...
. The university has its main campus located 5 miles (8 km) from
downtown Pittsburgh Downtown Pittsburgh, colloquially referred to as the Golden Triangle, and officially the Central Business District, is the urban downtown center of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located at the confluence of the Allegheny River an ...
. It also has over a dozen degree-granting locations in six continents, including campuses in
Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...
,
Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...
, and Kigali, Rwanda (
Carnegie Mellon University Africa Carnegie Mellon University Africa (CMU-Africa) is an overseas campus of the College of Engineering of Carnegie Mellon University, located in Kigali Innovation City in Kigali, Rwanda, East Africa. History In 2011, Carnegie Mellon University ...
) and partnerships with universities nationally and globally. Carnegie Mellon enrolls 15,818 students across its multiple campuses from 117 countries and employs more than 1,400 faculty members. Carnegie Mellon is known for its advances in research and new fields of study, home to many firsts in computer science (including the first
machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...
,
robotics Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer s ...
, and
computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of techniques in computer science, data analysis, mathematical modeling and Computer simulation, computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer sci ...
departments), pioneering the field of
management science Management science (or managerial science) is a wide and interdisciplinary study of solving complex problems and making strategic decisions as it pertains to institutions, corporations, governments and other types of organizational entities. It is ...
, and the first drama program in the United States. Carnegie Mellon is a member of the
Association of American Universities The Association of American Universities (AAU) is an organization of predominantly American research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Founded in 1900, it consists of 69 public and private ...
and is
classified Classified may refer to: General *Classified information, material that a government body deems to be sensitive *Classified advertising or "classifieds" Music *Classified (rapper) (born 1977), Canadian rapper * The Classified, a 1980s American ro ...
among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". Carnegie Mellon competes in NCAA Division III athletics as a founding member of the
University Athletic Association The University Athletic Association (UAA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference that competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III. Member schools are highly selective universities located in Georgia, Illino ...
. Carnegie Mellon fields eight men's teams and nine women's teams as the Tartans. The university's faculty and alumni include 21
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...
laureates and 13
Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in the fi ...
winners and have received 142
Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...
s, 64
Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...
s, and 13
Academy Awards The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...
.


History

The Carnegie Technical Schools were founded in 1900 in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
by the Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist
Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...
, who wrote "My heart is in the work", when he donated the funds to create the institution. Carnegie's vision was to open a vocational training school for the sons and daughters of working-class Pittsburghers, many of whom worked in his mills. Carnegie was inspired for the design of his school by the
Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...
in
Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
, founded by industrialist
Charles Pratt Charles Pratt (October 2, 1830 – May 4, 1891) was an American businessman. Pratt was a pioneer of the U.S. petroleum industry, and he established his kerosene refinery Astral Oil Works in Brooklyn, New York. He then lived with his growing fam ...
in 1887. In 1912, the institution changed its name to Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) and began offering four-year degrees. During this time, CIT consisted of four constituent schools: the School of Fine and Applied Arts, the School of Apprentices and Journeymen, the School of Science and Technology, and the Margaret Morrison Carnegie School for Women. The
Mellon Institute of Industrial Research The Mellon Institute of Industrial Research was a research institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that became part of Carnegie Mellon University. It was founded in 1913 by Andrew Mellon and Richard B. Mellon as part of the University of Pittsbur ...
was founded in 1913 by banker and industrialist brothers
Andrew Mellon Andrew William Mellon (; March 24, 1855 – August 26, 1937), known also as A. W. Mellon, was an American banker, businessman, industrialist, philanthropist, art collector, and politician. The son of Mellon family patriarch Thomas Mellon ...
(who went on to become U.S. Treasury Secretary) and Richard B. Mellon in honor of their father, Thomas Mellon, patriarch of the
Mellon family The Mellon family is a wealthy and influential American family from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The family includes Andrew Mellon, one of the longest serving U.S. Treasury Secretaries, while other members worked in the judicial, banking, financia ...
. The Institute began as a research organization that performed contract work for government and industry, initially as a department within the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
. In 1927, the Mellon Institute was incorporated as an independent nonprofit. In 1937, the Mellon Institute's iconic building was completed on Fifth Avenue. In 1967, with support from
Paul Mellon Paul Mellon (June 11, 1907 – February 2, 1999) was an American philanthropist and a horse breeding, breeder of thoroughbred horse racing, racehorses. He is one of only five people ever designated an "Exemplar of Racing" by the National Muse ...
, the Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to become Carnegie Mellon University. In 1973, Carnegie Mellon's coordinate
women's college Women's colleges in higher education are undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations are composed exclusively or almost exclusively of women. Some women's colleges admit male st ...
, the Margaret Morrison Carnegie College, merged its academic programs with the rest of the university. The industrial research mission of the Mellon Institute survived the merger as the Carnegie Mellon Research Institute (CMRI) and continued doing work on contract to industry and government. In 2001, CMRI's programs were subsumed by other parts of the university or spun off into autonomous entities. During the 1970s and 1980s, the tenure of president Richard Cyert (1972–1990) witnessed a period of growth and development. The research budget grew from roughly $12 million annually in the early 1970s to more than $110 million in the late 1980s. Researchers in new fields like
robotics Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer s ...
and
software engineering Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principl ...
helped the university to build its reputation. One example was the introduction of the "
Andrew Andrew is the English form of the given name, common in many countries. The word is derived from the , ''Andreas'', itself related to ''aner/andros'', "man" (as opposed to "woman"), thus meaning "manly" and, as consequence, "brave", "strong", "c ...
" computing network in the mid-1980s. This project linking all computers and workstations on campus set the standard for educational computing and established Carnegie Mellon as a technology leader in education and research. On April 24, 1985, ''cmu.edu'', Carnegie Mellon's Internet domain, became one of the first six .edu domain names. In the 1990s and into the 2000s, Carnegie Mellon solidified its status among American universities, consistently ranking in the top 25 in the national '' U.S. News & World Report'' rankings, and in the top 30 (ranking 28th in 2022) amongst universities worldwide.World's Best Universities; Top 400 Universities in the World
. US News. Retrieved on July 17, 2013.
QS World University Rankings – 2012
. Top Universities (December 19, 2012). Retrieved on July 17, 2013.
Carnegie Mellon is distinct in its interdisciplinary approach to research and education. Through the establishment of programs and centers outside the limitations of departments or colleges, the university has established leadership in fields such as
computational finance Computational finance is a branch of applied computer science that deals with problems of practical interest in finance.Rüdiger U. Seydel, ''Tools for Computational Finance'', Springer; 3rd edition (May 11, 2006) 978-3540279235 Some slightly diff ...
,
information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems comprise four components: task, people, structu ...
,
cognitive sciences Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...
, management, arts management, product design,
behavioral economics Behavioral economics is the study of the psychological (e.g. cognitive, behavioral, affective, social) factors involved in the decisions of individuals or institutions, and how these decisions deviate from those implied by traditional economi ...
, energy science and economics,
human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction (HCI) is the process through which people operate and engage with computer systems. Research in HCI covers the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and comp ...
, entertainment technology, and
decision science Decision may refer to: Law and politics *Judgment (law), as the outcome of a legal case * Landmark decision, the outcome of a case that sets a legal precedent * ''Per curiam'' decision, by a court with multiple judges Books * ''Decision'' (novel ...
. On April 15, 1997, Jared L. Cohon, former dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, was elected president by Carnegie Mellon's board of trustees. During Cohon's presidency, Carnegie Mellon continued its trajectory of innovation and growth. His strategic plan aimed to leverage the university's strengths to benefit society in the areas of
biotechnology Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary field that involves the integration of natural sciences and Engineering Science, engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms and parts thereof for products and services. Specialists ...
and
life sciences This list of life sciences comprises the branches of science that involve the scientific study of life – such as microorganisms, plants, and animals including human beings. This science is one of the two major branches of natural science, ...
, information and security technology, environmental science and practices, the
fine arts In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creativity, creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function ...
and
humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...
, and business and
public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a Group decision-making, decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to Problem solving, solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conceptio ...
. In 2006, following negotiations between President Cohon and South Australian Premier
Mike Rann Michael David Rann (born 5 January 1953) is an Australian former politician who was the 44th premier of South Australia from 2002 to 2011. He was later Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2013 to 2014, and List of Australi ...
, CMU opened a campus of the
Heinz College The Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, also known as Heinz College, is the public policy and information college of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It consists of the School of Information Systems and ...
in the historic Torrens Building in
Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...
, Australia. President Cohon's term ended on June 30, 2013, after which he returned to the faculty at Carnegie Mellon. On July 1, 2003, Carnegie Mellon launched "Insp!re Innovation", a $1 billion comprehensive fundraising campaign. Half of the campaign goal is intended for the endowment to provide long-lasting support for faculty, students and breakthrough innovations. The campaign brought in a total of $1.19 billion, with $578.5 million going toward Carnegie Mellon's endowment. It also enabled the university to establish 31 endowed professorships, 97 endowed fellowships and 250 endowed scholarships. On September 7, 2011, William S. Dietrich II, the former chairman of Dietrich Industries, Inc., a subsidiary of Worthington Industries, Inc., pledged a gift of $265 million, effective on October 6, 2011, upon his death. In response to this gift, Carnegie Mellon renamed the College of Humanities and Social Sciences as the Marianna Brown Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences after William Dietrich's mother. On April 23, 2012, New York's Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
's President
John Sexton John Edward Sexton (born September 29, 1942) is an American legal scholar. He is the Benjamin F. Butler Professor of Law at New York University where he teaches at the law school and NYU's undergraduate colleges. Sexton served as the fifteenth ...
announced an agreement between New York City, New York's MTA, and a consortium of academic institutions, and private technology companies that led to the creation in New York of a Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP), an applied science research institute composed of a partnership of institutions from around the globe, led by
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
with a consortium of universities including Carnegie Mellon, the
University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...
, the
City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...
, the
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT- Bombay or IIT-B) is a public research university and technical institute in Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. IIT Bombay is mainly known for the highly competitive four-year Bachelor of Tech ...
, and the
University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...
. On February 5, 2013, Carnegie Mellon announced the selection of
Subra Suresh Subra Suresh is an Indian-born American engineer, materials scientist, and academic leader. He is currently Professor at Large at Brown University and Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ...
, Director of the
National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...
and Dean of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Engineering The MIT School of Engineering (SoE) is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state i ...
, as its ninth president effective July 1, 2013. Suresh stepped down in June 2017 and was replaced by Farnam Jahanian, the university's interim-president and former provost, in March 2018. On October 30, 2019, Carnegie Mellon publicly announced the launch of "Make Possible: The Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University", a campaign which seeks to raise $2 billion to advance the university's priorities, including campus development. On September 8, 2022, Carnegie Mellon announced a $275.7 million partnership with the Mastercard Foundation to support
Carnegie Mellon University Africa Carnegie Mellon University Africa (CMU-Africa) is an overseas campus of the College of Engineering of Carnegie Mellon University, located in Kigali Innovation City in Kigali, Rwanda, East Africa. History In 2011, Carnegie Mellon University ...
in Kigali, Rwanda. Carnegie Mellon's Kigali campus provides graduate-level study in engineering and artificial intelligence. On November 6, 2023, Carnegie Mellon Trustee Ray Lane and his wife Stephanie Lane invested $25 million in support of the university's Computational Biology department.


Campus


Overview

Carnegie Mellon's 157.2 acre (63 ha) main campus is five miles (8 km) from downtown
Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
, between
Schenley Park Schenley Park () is a large municipal park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located between the neighborhoods of Oakland (Pittsburgh), Oakland, Greenfield (Pittsburgh), Greenfield, and Squirrel Hill. It is also listed on the Nat ...
and the neighborhoods of
Squirrel Hill Squirrel Hill is a residential neighborhood in the East End of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The city officially divides it into two neighborhoods, Squirrel Hill North and Squirrel Hill South, but it is almost universally treated ...
, Shadyside, and
Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...
. Carnegie Mellon is bordered to the west by the campus of the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
. Carnegie Mellon owns 81 buildings in the
Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...
and
Squirrel Hill Squirrel Hill is a residential neighborhood in the East End of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The city officially divides it into two neighborhoods, Squirrel Hill North and Squirrel Hill South, but it is almost universally treated ...
neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. For decades, the center of student life on campus was Skibo Hall, the university's student union. Built in the 1950s, Skibo Hall's design was typical of
mid-century modern Mid-century modern (MCM) is a movement in interior design, product design, graphic design, architecture and urban development that was present in all the world, but more popular in North America, Brazil and Europe from roughly 1945 to 197 ...
architecture but was poorly equipped to deal with advances in computer and internet connectivity. The original Skibo Hall was razed in the summer of 1994 and replaced by a new student union that is fully Wi-Fi enabled. Known as the University Center, the building was dedicated in 1996. In 2014, Carnegie Mellon re-dedicated the University Center as the Cohon University Center in recognition of the eighth president of the university,
Jared Cohon Jared Leigh Cohon (October 7, 1947 – March 16, 2024) was an American academic administrator who served as the eighth president of Carnegie Mellon University beginning in 1997 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. , he was a University ...
. A large grassy area known as "The Cut" forms the backbone of the campus, with a separate grassy area known as "The Mall" running perpendicular. The Cut was formed by filling in a ravine (hence the name) with soil from a nearby hill that was leveled to build the College of Fine Arts building. The northwestern part of the campus (home to Hamburg Hall, Newell-Simon Hall, Smith Hall, and Gates Hillman Complex) was acquired from the
United States Bureau of Mines The United States Bureau of Mines (USBM) was the primary Federal government of the United States, United States government agency in the 20th century that conducted scientific research and disseminated information on the extraction, processing ...
in the 1980s. Carnegie Mellon has been purchasing 100% renewable energy for its electricity since 2011.


Early architecture

The campus began to take shape in the
Beaux-Arts architecture Beaux-Arts architecture ( , ) was the academic architectural style taught at the in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorporated Renaissance and ...
style of
George Carnegie Palmer George Carnegie Palmer (December 20, 1861 – February 29, 1934), was an American architect who specialized in designing Beaux Arts style civic and academic buildings in the United States. He is best known for his work with the architect Henry H ...
and Henry Hornbostel of Palmer & Hornbostel, winners of the 1904 competition to design the original institution and later the founder of the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture. Most buildings around the university's main campus were originally roofed with green Ludowici
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...
tile. There was little change to the campus between the
first First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...
and
second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. A 1938 master plan by Githens and Keally suggested acquisition of new land along Forbes Avenue, but the plan was not fully implemented. The period starting with the construction of the Hall of the Arts building (former home of the Graduate School of Industrial Administration) in 1952 and ending with Wean Hall in 1971 saw the institutional change from Carnegie Institute of Technology to Carnegie Mellon University. Around this time an expanding student population demanded improved facilities for student life, athletics and libraries. The campus expanded to Forbes Avenue from its original land along
Schenley Park Schenley Park () is a large municipal park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located between the neighborhoods of Oakland (Pittsburgh), Oakland, Greenfield (Pittsburgh), Greenfield, and Squirrel Hill. It is also listed on the Nat ...
.


Mid-20th century

The buildings of this era reflected contemporary architectural styles. The
International Style The International Style is a major architectural style and movement that began in western Europe in the 1920s and dominated modern architecture until the 1970s. It is defined by strict adherence to Functionalism (architecture), functional and Fo ...
, with its rejection of historical tradition and its emphases on functionalism and expression of structure, had been in vogue in European settings since the 1930s. It came late to the Carnegie Mellon campus because of the hiatus in building activity and a general reluctance among American universities to abandon historical styles. By the 1960s, the International Style was adopted to accomplish needed expansion quickly and affordably with the swelling of student ranks in the aftermath of the
GI Bill The G.I. Bill, formally the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, but the te ...
in 1944. Each building was a unique architectural statement that may have acknowledged the existing campus in its placement, but not in its form or materials. Starting in the 1990s the university built a new university center (Cohon University Center), theater and drama building (Purnell Center for the Arts), business school building (
Tepper School of Business The Tepper School of Business is the business school of Carnegie Mellon University. It is located in the university's campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The school offers degrees from the undergraduate through doctoral levels, in addition to ...
), and several dormitories.


2000s

Baker Hall was renovated in the early 2000s, and new chemistry labs were established in Doherty Hall soon after. Several computer science buildings, such as Newell-Simon Hall, also were established, renovated or renamed in the early 2000s. In 2006, Carnegie Mellon Trustee Jill Gansman Kraus donated the -tall sculpture '' Walking to the Sky'', which was placed on the lawn facing Forbes Avenue between the Cohon University Center and Warner Hall. The sculpture was controversial for its placement, the general lack of input from the campus community, and its (lack of) aesthetic appeal. The Gates Hillman Complex opened for occupancy on August 7, 2009. It sits on a site on the university's West Campus, surrounded by Cyert Hall, the Purnell Center for the Arts, Doherty Hall, Newell-Simon Hall, Smith Hall, Hamburg Hall, and the Robert Mehrabian Collaborative Innovation Center. It contains 318 offices as well as labs,
computer cluster A computer cluster is a set of computers that work together so that they can be viewed as a single system. Unlike grid computers, computer clusters have each node set to perform the same task, controlled and scheduled by software. The newes ...
s, lecture halls, classrooms and a 255-seat auditorium. The Gates Hillman Complex was made possible by a $20 million lead gift from the
Gates Foundation The Gates Foundation is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be the third largest charitable foundation in the world, holding $ ...
and an additional $10 million grant from the Henry L. Hillman Foundation. The Gates Hillman Complex and the Purnell Center for the Arts are connected by the Randy Pausch Memorial Footbridge. In September 2012, Carnegie Mellon announced the construction of the Sherman and Joyce Bowie Scott Hall on the Pittsburgh campus. The building is situated between Hamerschlag Hall, Roberts Hall, and Wean Hall and houses the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, Bertucci Nanotechnology Lab, Engineering Research Accelerator (formerly known as the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems), Disruptive Health Technologies Institute, and the Department of Biomedical Engineering. In November 2013, Carnegie Mellon announced a $67 million gift from
David Tepper David Alan Tepper (born September 11, 1957) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager. He is the owner of the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League (NFL) and Charlotte FC of Major League Soccer (MLS). Tepper is the founder and ...
, who previously donated $56 million, to develop the Tepper Quadrangle on the north campus. The Tepper Quad includes a new Tepper School of Business facility across Forbes Avenue from a renovated and expanded Hamburg Hall (home to Heinz College) as well as other university-wide buildings and a welcome center to serve as a public gateway to the university. In April 2015, Carnegie Mellon, in collaboration with
Jones Lang LaSalle Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (JLL) is a global real estate services company, founded in the United Kingdom with offices in 80 countries. The company also provides investment management services worldwide, including services to institutional an ...
, announced the planning of a second office space structure, alongside the Robert Mehrabian Collaborative Innovation Center, an upscale and full-service hotel, and retail and dining development along Forbes Avenue. This complex will connect to the Tepper Quadrangle, the Heinz College, the Tata Consultancy Services Building, and the Gates-Hillman Center to create an innovation corridor on the university campus. The effort is intended to continue to attract major corporate partnerships to create opportunities for research, teaching, and employment with students and faculty. Alongside the Tepper Quad and Hamburg Hall, Carnegie Mellon finished construction in 2020 on TCS Hall, an innovation center made possible with a $35 million gift from
Tata Consultancy Services Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in information technology services and consulting. Headquartered in Mumbai, it is a part of the Tata Group and operates in 150 ...
. Carnegie Mellon announced plans to collaborate with Emerald Cloud Lab to construct the world's first cloud lab in a university setting. The Carnegie Mellon University Cloud Lab was planned to be completed by the spring of 2023. Carnegie Mellon also planned to construct a new mechanical engineering building by fall 2023 (Scaife Hall), a new $105 million athletics center by fall 2024 (Highmark Center for Health, Wellness and Athletics), a $210 million Science Futures Building (R.K. Mellon Hall of Sciences) by 2026, as well as a Robotics Innovation Center at Hazelwood Green, along with new dormitories and other buildings. On April 12, 2024, Carnegie Mellon broke ground for construction of its new Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences, a 338,900 square-foot addition to its campus.


Organization

The College of Engineering includes seven engineering departments (
Biomedical Engineering Biomedical engineering (BME) or medical engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare applications (e.g., diagnostic or therapeutic purposes). BME also integrates the logica ...
,
Chemical Engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of the operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials ...
, Civil and
Environmental Engineering Environmental engineering is a professional engineering Academic discipline, discipline related to environmental science. It encompasses broad Science, scientific topics like chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, hydraulics, hydrology, microbiolo ...
,
Electrical Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...
and
Computer Engineering Computer engineering (CE, CoE, or CpE) is a branch of engineering specialized in developing computer hardware and software. It integrates several fields of electrical engineering, electronics engineering and computer science. Computer engi ...
, Engineering and Public Policy,
Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...
, and
Materials Science and Engineering Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials scien ...
), two interdisciplinary institutes (the Information Networking Institute and the Integrated Innovation Institute), and the Engineering Research Accelerator. The College of Fine Arts is one of the oldest colleges of fine arts in the United States, and today it is a federation of five distinct schools: The School of Architecture, The School of Music, The School of Design, The School of Drama, and The School of Art. The college shares research projects, interdisciplinary centers and educational programs with other units across the university. The College of Fine Arts runs master's programs in Arts Management and Entertainment Industry Management with the Heinz College, as well as interdisciplinary undergraduate programs with the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences (BHA), Mellon College of Science (BSA), the School of Computer Science (BCSA), and the College of Engineering (BESA). The Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences is the university's liberal arts college and emphasizes the study of the human condition through rigorous analysis and technology. Departments include English,
History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
,
Modern Languages A modern language is any human language that is currently in use as a native language. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead clas ...
,
Philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
,
Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
, Social and Decision Sciences, and
Statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...
as well as an Institute for Politics and Strategy. The college also offers undergraduate degree programs in
Information Systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems comprise four components: task, people, structu ...
, Economics (jointly with the Tepper School of Business), and the Bachelor of Humanities and Arts (BHA) with the College of Fine Arts. The H. John Heinz III College of Information Systems and Public Policy offers top-ranked master's degrees in
Public Policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a Group decision-making, decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to Problem solving, solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conceptio ...
and Management, Health Care Policy and Management, Medical Management,
Public Management Public administration, or public policy and administration refers to "the management of public programs", or the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day",Kettl, Donald and James Fessler. 2009. ''The Politics of the ...
,
Information Systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems comprise four components: task, people, structu ...
and Management, Information Technology, and Information Security Policy and Management. The Heinz College also runs master's programs in Arts Management and Entertainment Industry Management with the College of Fine Arts. Heinz College consists of the School of Information Systems & Management and the School of Public Policy & Management. It also offers several PhD and executive education programs. The Mellon College of Science has four departments:
Biological Sciences Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of ...
,
Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...
,
Mathematical Sciences The Mathematical Sciences are a group of areas of study that includes, in addition to mathematics, those academic disciplines that are primarily mathematical in nature but may not be universally considered subfields of mathematics proper. Statisti ...
, and
Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, 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 whi ...
. The college is expanding efforts in
neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...
,
green chemistry Green chemistry, similar to sustainable chemistry or circular chemistry, is an area of chemistry and chemical engineering focused on the design of products and processes that minimize or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. Wh ...
,
bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...
,
computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of techniques in computer science, data analysis, mathematical modeling and Computer simulation, computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer sci ...
,
nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...
,
computational finance Computational finance is a branch of applied computer science that deals with problems of practical interest in finance.Rüdiger U. Seydel, ''Tools for Computational Finance'', Springer; 3rd edition (May 11, 2006) 978-3540279235 Some slightly diff ...
, cosmology, sensor research, and biological physics. It also offers an undergraduate Bachelor of Science and Arts (BSA) degree in conjunction with the College of Fine Arts. The School of Computer Science: Carnegie Mellon helped define, and continually redefines, the field of
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
. The School of Computer Science is recognized internationally as one of the top schools for computer science and has been consistently ranked the best in the country. The School of Computer Science includes seven departments: the Computer Science Department, Ray and Stephanie Lane Computational Biology Department,
Robotics Institute The Robotics Institute (RI) is a division of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. A June 2014 article in ''Robotics Business Review'' magazine calls it "the world's best robo ...
, Machine Learning Department, the Human–Computer Interaction Institute, the
Language Technologies Institute The Language Technologies Institute (LTI) is a research institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, and focuses on the area of language technologies. The institute is home to 33 faculty with the primary sch ...
, and the Software and Societal Systems Department (S3D). It additionally offers the undergraduate Bachelor of Computer Science and Arts (BCSA) degree in conjunction with the College of Fine Arts. The
Tepper School of Business The Tepper School of Business is the business school of Carnegie Mellon University. It is located in the university's campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The school offers degrees from the undergraduate through doctoral levels, in addition to ...
(formerly the Graduate School of Industrial Administration) offers undergraduate programs in
Business Administration Business administration is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. Overview The administration of a business includes the performance o ...
and
Economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
(the latter jointly with the Dietrich College), master's degrees in Business Administration (
MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...
), Product Management (MSPM) and joint degrees in
Computational Finance Computational finance is a branch of applied computer science that deals with problems of practical interest in finance.Rüdiger U. Seydel, ''Tools for Computational Finance'', Springer; 3rd edition (May 11, 2006) 978-3540279235 Some slightly diff ...
(MSCF) with the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Mellon College of Science, the Heinz College, and the School of Computer Science. In addition, joint degrees are offered with Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Heinz College. The Tepper School also offers doctoral degrees in several areas and presents a number of
executive education Executive education (ExEd or Exec. Ed) refers to academic programs at graduate-level business schools for executives, business leaders and managers, globally. These programs are generally non-credit and non-degree-granting, but sometimes lead to ...
programs. Following a $67 million donation from alumnus David A. Tepper in 2013, the university expanded the undergraduate business program and named the school after him. In summer of 2015, a new curriculum was formally instated. Carnegie Mellon also runs the Integrative Design, Arts, and Technology (IDeATe) Network to provide university-wide arts and technology education to students from every college. IDeATe allows students to take minors or concentrations in Animation and Special Effects, Entrepreneurship for Creative Industries, Game Design, Intelligent Environments, Learning Media, Media Design, Physical Computing, and Sound Design. IDeAte will also offer graduate master's degrees in Emerging Media, Game Design, Integrative Innovation for Products and Services, Computational Data Science, Urban Design, and Production Technology and Management. IDeATe also manages the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) in conjunction with the School of Computer Science and the College of Fine Arts. Each master's degree program has an option to study in the CMU Integrative Media Program (IMP) at
Steiner Studios Steiner Studios is a film studio at Brooklyn Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York City. It is the largest film and television production studio complex in the United States outside Hollywood. Steiner Studios, spread across , contains 30 soundstages a ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. IDeATe Network will be based on the Pittsburgh campus upon the development of recently acquired property on Forbes Avenue west of Junction Hollow. In addition to research and academic institutions, the university hosts several other educationally driven programs. The Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Sciences, a state-funded summer program that aims to foster interest in science amongst gifted high school students is run on campus every summer. The university also runs Carnegie Mellon Pre-College, a six-week residential program for rising juniors and seniors in high school and the Summer Academy for Math and Science (SAMS), a free-of-charge STEM immersion program for students from underrepresented backgrounds. The Cyert Center for Early Education is a child care center for Carnegie Mellon faculty and staff, as well as an observational setting for students in child development courses. Carnegie Mellon also developed the Open Learning Initiative which provides free courses online in a variety of fields to students globally.


Academics


Rankings

Nationally, '' U.S. News & World Report'' placed Carnegie Mellon in a tie with
Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...
and the
University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
for 21st place among American research universities in their 2024-2025 rankings. Many of its graduate programs have been ranked in national and international surveys. In 2022, ''U.S. News'' ranked Carnegie Mellon as having 23 graduate programs in the Top 10 nationwide and 16 in the Top 5 nationwide., including three programs ranked first: Artificial Intelligence, Programming Languages, and Information and Technology Management. In particular, the CMU School of Computer Science has been consistently ranked the best in the nation, tied with
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...
,
Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...
, and
UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...
. Globally, Carnegie Mellon is ranked 28th by ''
Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The THES''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...
'' and 52nd by ''
QS World University Rankings The ''QS World University Rankings'' is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with '' Times ...
''. Carnegie Mellon was named one of the "New Ivies" by ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...
''. In 2010, ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' ranked Carnegie Mellon 1st in computer science, 4th in finance, 10th overall, and 21st in engineering according to job recruiters. Carnegie Mellon ranks thirteenth among "Best Colleges By Salary Potential (Bachelor's Only)" in the United States according to '' PayScale'' 2016–17 study. In 2024, Carnegie Mellon's
Tepper School of Business The Tepper School of Business is the business school of Carnegie Mellon University. It is located in the university's campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The school offers degrees from the undergraduate through doctoral levels, in addition to ...
placed 9th in a
annual ranking
of U.S. business schools by ''
Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...
''. In 2016, ''
The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'' ranked the School of Drama 3rd in the world among undergraduate drama schools. In 2015, the same publication ranked the MFA program at the School of Drama 5th in the world. Carnegie Mellon's Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences was ranked 55th for social sciences and 60th for humanities in the world by ''
Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The THES''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...
'' for 2020. Dietrich College is also ranked 20th for social sciences among Shanghai Jiao Tong University's world's top 100 universities. Carnegie Mellon is one of 66 elected members of the
Association of American Universities The Association of American Universities (AAU) is an organization of predominantly American research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Founded in 1900, it consists of 69 public and private ...
and one of 29 members (one of 13 American members) of the
World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...
Global University Leaders Forum The Global University Leaders Forum (GULF) is a group of presidents from the world's top 29 universities, established in 2006 by the World Economic Forum (WEF). It describes itself as a "community" to address educational, scientific and research ...
.


Admissions

''U.S. News & World Report'' rates admission to Carnegie Mellon as "most selective". For the class of 2026 (enrolling in fall 2022), Carnegie Mellon received 34,261 applications and admitted approximately 3,873 (11%), with 1,736 enrolling. The acceptance rates of the individual colleges and programs range from Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture's 30% to Carnegie Mellon School of Drama's 3%. The largest college, in terms of the class of 2025 enrollment, is the College of Engineering with 499 students, followed by the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences with 391, and the Mellon College of Science with 266. The smallest college is the School of Design, with 34. The middle 50% range of
SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and Test score, scoring have changed several times. For much of its history, it was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test ...
scores of enrolled freshmen was 720-770 for reading and writing, and 770-800 for math, while the middle 50% range of the ACT composite score was 34–35. The university is
need-blind Need-blind admission in the United States refers to a college admission policy that does not take into account an applicant's financial status when deciding whether to accept them. This approach typically results in a higher percentage of accepted ...
for domestic applicants. The class of 2026 enrolled students from 46 U.S. states and 42 countries. Undergraduate tuition for 2023-2024 is $62,260, and room and board is $17,468.


Research

CMU is
classified Classified may refer to: General *Classified information, material that a government body deems to be sensitive *Classified advertising or "classifieds" Music *Classified (rapper) (born 1977), Canadian rapper * The Classified, a 1980s American ro ...
among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". For the 2021 fiscal year, the university spent $402 million on research. The primary recipients of this funding were the School of Computer Science ($100.3 million), the
Software Engineering Institute Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1984, the institute is now sponsored by the Uni ...
($71.7 million), the College of Engineering ($48.5 million), and the Mellon College of Science ($47.7 million). The research money comes largely from federal sources, with a federal investment of $234.9 million in 2021. The federal agencies that invest the most money include the
National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...
and the
Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...
, which contributed $70.5 million and $90.4 million in 2021, respectively. The recognition of Carnegie Mellon as one of the best research facilities in the nation has a long history. As early as the 1987 federal budget, CMU was ranked as third in the amount of federal research funds received with $41.5 million, with only MIT and Johns Hopkins receiving more research funds from the Department of Defense. The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) is a joint effort between Carnegie Mellon,
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
, and
Westinghouse Electric Company Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is an American nuclear power company formed in 1999 from the nuclear power division of the original Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It offers nuclear products and services to utilities internationally, includ ...
. PSC was founded in 1986 by its two scientific directors, Ralph Roskies of the University of Pittsburgh and Michael Levine of Carnegie Mellon. PSC is a leading partner in the
TeraGrid TeraGrid was an e-Science grid computing infrastructure combining resources at eleven partner sites. The project started in 2001 and operated from 2004 through 2011. The TeraGrid integrated high-performance computers, data resources and tools, an ...
, the National Science Foundation's cyberinfrastructure program. The Neuroscience Institute (NI) is a university-wide research institute that was founded in 2018 as a successor to an earlier effort, known as Brainhub. Combining research in
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
,
engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...
,
machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...
,
statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...
, and
cognitive science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...
with basic
neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...
, NI aims to promote research that will improve the human condition. Devices developed by the institute have been designed to enable communication for locked-in patients, treatments for
Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a neurodegenerative disease primarily of the central nervous system, affecting both motor system, motor and non-motor systems. Symptoms typically develop gradually and non-motor issues become ...
, improved
brain imaging Neuroimaging is the use of quantitative (computational) techniques to study the structure and function of the central nervous system, developed as an objective way of scientifically studying the healthy human brain in a non-invasive manner. Incre ...
technology using
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
, and
electrode An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit (e.g. a semiconductor, an electrolyte, a vacuum or a gas). In electrochemical cells, electrodes are essential parts that can consist of a varie ...
s that work with coarse, curly hair. NI includes over 30 faculty and 100 trainees from four colleges and oversees two
PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
programs (the Program in Neural Computation and the Program in Systems Neuroscience) that have received support from the
National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...
. Numerous philanthropic gifts help support NI research. NI also provides direct administrative and monetary support for the Center for Neural Basis of Cognition, a long-running collaboration with the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
. The
Robotics Institute The Robotics Institute (RI) is a division of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. A June 2014 article in ''Robotics Business Review'' magazine calls it "the world's best robo ...
(RI) is a division of the School of Computer Science and considered to be one of the leading centers of robotics research in the world. The Field Robotics Center (FRC) has developed a number of significant robots, including
Sandstorm A dust storm, also called a sandstorm, is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Fine particles are transported b ...
and
H1ghlander H1ghlander is an autonomous vehicle. Created by Carnegie Mellon University's Red Team, it is a heavily modified 1999 HUMMER H1. It competed in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. The sensors used by H1ghlander include LIDAR laser-ranging unit ...
, which finished second and third in the
DARPA Grand Challenge The DARPA Grand Challenge is a prize competition for American vehicle automation, autonomous vehicles, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the most prominent research organization of the United States Department of Defense. Uni ...
, and Boss, which won the DARPA Urban Challenge. The Robotics Institute has partnered with a spinoff company, Astrobotic Technology Inc., to land a CMU robot on the moon by 2016 in pursuit of the Google Lunar XPrize. The robot, known as Andy, is designed to explore lunar pits, which might include entrances to caves. The RI is primarily sited at Carnegie Mellon's main campus in Newell-Simon hall. The
Software Engineering Institute Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1984, the institute is now sponsored by the Uni ...
(SEI) is a
federally funded research and development center Federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) are public-private partnerships that conduct research and development for the United States Government. Under Federal Acquisition Regulationbr>§ 35.017 FFRDCs are operated by univers ...
sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense and operated by Carnegie Mellon, with offices in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and Arlington, Virginia. The SEI publishes books on
software engineering Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principl ...
for industry, government and military applications and practices. The organization is known for its
Capability Maturity Model The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a development model created in 1986 after a study of data collected from organizations that contracted with the U.S. Department of Defense, who funded the research. The term "maturity" relates to the degree ...
(CMM) and
Capability Maturity Model Integration Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process level improvement training and appraisal program. Administered by the CMMI Institute, a subsidiary of ISACA, it was developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). It is required by many ...
(CMMI), which identify essential elements of effective system and software engineering processes and can be used to rate the level of an organization's capability for producing quality systems. The SEI is also the home of
CERT/CC The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) is the coordination center of the computer emergency response team (CERT) for the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), a non-profit United States federally funded research and development center. The CERT ...
, the federally funded computer security organization. The CERT Program's primary goals are to support secure requirements and development of computer systems and ensure that appropriate technology and systems management practices are used to resist attacks on networked systems and to limit damage and ensure continuity of critical services subsequent to attacks, accidents, or failures. The Human–Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) is a division of the School of Computer Science and is considered one of the leading centers of
human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction (HCI) is the process through which people operate and engage with computer systems. Research in HCI covers the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and comp ...
research, integrating computer science, design, social science, and learning science. Such interdisciplinary collaboration is the hallmark of research done throughout the university. The
Language Technologies Institute The Language Technologies Institute (LTI) is a research institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, and focuses on the area of language technologies. The institute is home to 33 faculty with the primary sch ...
(LTI) is another unit of the School of Computer Science and is famous for being one of the leading research centers in the area of language technologies. The primary research focus of the institute is on
machine translation Machine translation is use of computational techniques to translate text or speech from one language to another, including the contextual, idiomatic and pragmatic nuances of both languages. Early approaches were mostly rule-based or statisti ...
,
speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers. It is also ...
,
speech synthesis Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal langua ...
,
information retrieval Information retrieval (IR) in computing and information science is the task of identifying and retrieving information system resources that are relevant to an Information needs, information need. The information need can be specified in the form ...
,
parsing Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is a process of analyzing a String (computer science), string of Symbol (formal), symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal gramm ...
and information extraction. Until 1996, the institute existed as the Center for Machine Translation that was established in 1986. From 1996 onwards, it started awarding graduate degrees and the name was changed to Language Technologies Institute. The Ray and Stephanie Lane Computational Biology Department, one of the seven departments in the School of Computer Science, was established in 2007 (as Lane Center for Computational Biology), officially became a department within the School of Computer Science in 2009, and named the Ray and Stephanie Lane Computational Biology Department in 2023. The department is the leader in developing computational methodologies to advance biomedical research. Carnegie Mellon is also home to the Carnegie School of management and economics. This intellectual school grew out of the
Tepper School of Business The Tepper School of Business is the business school of Carnegie Mellon University. It is located in the university's campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The school offers degrees from the undergraduate through doctoral levels, in addition to ...
in the 1950s and 1960s and focused on the intersection of behavioralistm and management. Several management theories, most notably
bounded rationality Bounded rationality is the idea that rationality is limited when individuals decision-making, make decisions, and under these limitations, rational individuals will select a decision that is satisficing, satisfactory rather than optimal. Limitat ...
and the behavioral
theory of the firm The theory of the firm consists of a number of economic theories that explain and predict the nature of the firm, company, or corporation, including its existence, behaviour, structure, and relationship to the market. Firms are key drivers in eco ...
, were established by Carnegie School management scientists and economists. Carnegie Mellon also develops cross-disciplinary and university-wide institutes and initiatives to take advantage of strengths in various colleges and departments and develop solutions in critical social and technical problems. To date, these have included the Cylab Security and Privacy Institute, the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, the Neuroscience Institute, the Simon Initiative, and the Disruptive Healthcare Technology Institute. Carnegie Mellon has made a concerted effort to attract corporate research labs, offices, and partnerships to the Pittsburgh campus.
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...
,
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...
,
Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
,
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
,
Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
,
Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
,
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
,
General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...
,
Bombardier Inc. Bombardier Inc. () is a Canadian aerospace manufacturer that produces business jets. Headquartered in Montreal, the company was founded in 1942 by Joseph-Armand Bombardier to market his snowmobiles, and it later became one of the world's big ...
,
Yahoo! Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, and its a ...
,
Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. is an American multinational transportation company that provides Ridesharing company, ride-hailing services, courier services, food delivery, and freight transport. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California, a ...
,
Tata Consultancy Services Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in information technology services and consulting. Headquartered in Mumbai, it is a part of the Tata Group and operates in 150 ...
, Ansys,
Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...
,
Robert Bosch GmbH Robert Bosch GmbH (; ), commonly known as Bosch (styled BOSCH), is a German multinational engineering and technology company headquartered in Gerlingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The company was founded by Robert Bosch in Stuttgart in 188 ...
, and the
Rand Corporation The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...
have established a presence on or near campus. In collaboration with Intel, Carnegie Mellon has pioneered research into
claytronics Programmable matter is matter which has the ability to change its physical properties (shape, density, moduli, conductivity, optical properties, etc.) in a programmable fashion, based upon user input or autonomous sensing. Programmable matter is ...
.


International activities

In addition to its Pittsburgh campus, Carnegie Mellon has a branch campus in the Middle East,
Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (Arabic: جامعة كارنيجي ميلون في قطر) is a satellite campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Education City, Doha, Qatar. This campus is a member of the Qatar Foundation and started gradu ...
, which offers a full undergraduate curriculum with degree programs in computer science, business administration, biology, computational biology, and information systems. The campus is located in
Doha Doha ( ) is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor (city), Al Khor and Lusail, it is home to most of the country's population. It ...
's
Education City Education City is an educational and research hub located in Al Rayyan, Al Rayyan Municipality in the Doha Metropolitan Area of Qatar. Developed by the Qatar Foundation, it was established by Moza bint Nasser, one of the consorts of Qatar's form ...
which is home to multiple other U.S. universities all of which are funded by the
Qatar Foundation The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development () is a state-led non-profit organization in Qatar, founded in 1995 by then-List of emirs of Qatar, emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and his second wife Moza bint Nasser Al-Miss ...
. The
Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...
i campus has been the subject of controversy, as Islamic cultural values and laws in Qatar differ greatly from the core values of Carnegie Mellon. Additionally, Carnegie Mellon and other U.S. universities in Education City have been criticized for being essentially complicit in Qatar's corruption, connections with
Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...
and their questionable
human rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...
record by continuing to operate there. It also has graduate-level extension campuses in
Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mountain V ...
in the heart of
Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...
(offering masters programs in
Software Engineering Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principl ...
and Software Management). The
Tepper School of Business The Tepper School of Business is the business school of Carnegie Mellon University. It is located in the university's campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The school offers degrees from the undergraduate through doctoral levels, in addition to ...
maintains a satellite center in downtown
Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
and the Heinz College maintains one in
Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...
, Australia. The
Heinz College The Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, also known as Heinz College, is the public policy and information college of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It consists of the School of Information Systems and ...
, the Institute for Politics and Strategy, and the Department of Engineering and Public Policy host centers in
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
as part of degree programs, research, and government affairs initiatives as well as being a part of the University of California, Washington Center. Carnegie Mellon also established the Integrative Media Program at
Steiner Studios Steiner Studios is a film studio at Brooklyn Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York City. It is the largest film and television production studio complex in the United States outside Hollywood. Steiner Studios, spread across , contains 30 soundstages a ...
in
Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
, New York. Carnegie Mellon also maintains the Carnegie Mellon Los Angeles Center in
North Hollywood, California North Hollywood is a neighborhood and district in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California. The neighborhood contains the NoHo Arts District, El Portal Theater, several art galleries, and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Th ...
where students in the Master of Entertainment Industry Management program are required to relocate to Los Angeles in their second year and attend classes at this facility. Carnegie Mellon's Information Networking Institute offers graduate programs in
Athens, Greece Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...
and
Kobe, Japan Kobe ( ; , ), officially , is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. With a population of around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's List of Japanese cities by population, seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Port of Toky ...
, in collaboration with Athens Information Technology and the Hyogo Institute of Information Education Foundation, respectively. In the fall of 2007, the cities of Aveiro and
Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...
, Portugal were added to the Information Networking Institute's remote locations. The Software and Societal Systems Department (S3D) offers graduate programs in
Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), officially the City of Coimbra (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2021 census was 140,796, in an area of . The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Po ...
, Portugal. The Entertainment Technology Center offers graduate programs in Portugal, Japan, and Singapore. The Human–Computer Interaction Institute offers a master's degree in conjunction with the University of Madeira, in Portugal at the jointly founded Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute. The College of Engineering has an international location in Kigali, Rwanda offering the Master of Science in Information Technology and the Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering.


Libraries

The Libraries of Carnegie Mellon include Hunt Library, the Roger Sorrells Engineering & Science Library, the Mellon Institute Library, the Posner Center, and the Qatar Library. Additionally, the Libraries' Million Book Project (2001–2008) sparked development of the Universal Digital Library. The university libraries host a number of full text special collections for public access, including the
Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...
Collection,
Herbert A. Simon Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American scholar whose work influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His primary research interest was decision-making within organi ...
Collection,
Allen Newell Allen Newell (March 19, 1927 – July 19, 1992) was an American researcher in computer science and cognitive psychology at the RAND Corporation and at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science, Tepper School of Business, and D ...
Collection, the H. John Heinz III Collection, the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspapers Project, and the Posner Memorial Collection. Carnegie Mellon students and faculty have access to the
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is the public library system in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its main branch is located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and it has 19 branch locations throughout the city. Like hundreds of other Carne ...
and some
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
libraries through consortial agreements with those institutions. The
Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation (HIBD), dedicated as the Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt Botanical Library in 1961, is a research division of Carnegie Mellon University. History HIBD is named for Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt. She don ...
(HIBD), dedicated as the Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt Botanical Library in 1961, has been a research division of CMU since its founding. The HIBD is an international bibliographical research and service in the fields of botany, horticulture, and the history of the plant sciences and has a significant research library and art holdings on the 5th floor of Hunt Library. The university's
Software Engineering Institute Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1984, the institute is now sponsored by the Uni ...
also houses a research library. Carnegie Mellon also manages the
Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps The Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) program is a college-based, commissioned officer training program of the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. Origins A pilot Naval Reserve unit was established in September 1924 ...
in Pittsburgh on which students throughout Pittsburgh's universities rely. Carnegie Mellon partners with the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
to provide opportunities in
Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps The Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (AROTC) is the United States Army component of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. It is the largest Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program which is a group of college and university-based officer tr ...
and
Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps The Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps (AFROTC) is one of the three primary commissioning sources for officers in the United States Air Force and United States Space Force, the other two being the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA ...
to its students. Carnegie Mellon is accredited by the
Middle States Commission on Higher Education The Middle States Commission on Higher Education, abbreviated as MSCHE and legally incorporated as the Mid-Atlantic Region Commission on Higher Education, is a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit membership organization that performs peer evalua ...
.


Collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh

Carnegie Mellon neighbors the campus of the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
, and in some cases, buildings of the two universities are intermingled. This helps to facilitate myriad academic and research collaborations between the two schools, including such projects as the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, the Immune Modeling Center, the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, as well as the National Science Foundation-supported Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center. Further, the universities also offer multiple dual and joint degree programs such as the
Medical Scientist Training Program The Medical Scientist Training Programs (MSTPs) are dual-degree training programs that streamline the education towards both clinical (typically MD) and research doctoral degrees. MSTPs are offered by some United States medical schools, who are aw ...
, the Molecular Biophysics and Structural Biology Graduate Program, th
Joint CMU-Pitt Ph.D. Program in Computational Biology
th
Center for Neural Basis of Cognition
and the Law and Business Administration program. Some professors hold joint professorships between the two schools, and students at each university may take classes at the other (with appropriate approvals). CMU students and faculty also have access to the University of Pittsburgh library system, as well as the
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is the public library system in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its main branch is located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and it has 19 branch locations throughout the city. Like hundreds of other Carne ...
. The two universities also co-host academic conferences, such as the 2012 Second Language Research Forum. In 2015, in conjunction with the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC, Carnegie Mellon became a partner of the Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance to leverage data analysis in health care.


Discoveries and innovation


Natural sciences

*
Electron diffraction Electron diffraction is a generic term for phenomena associated with changes in the direction of electron beams due to elastic interactions with atoms. It occurs due to elastic scattering, when there is no change in the energy of the electrons. ...
Clinton Davisson Clinton Joseph Davisson (October 22, 1881 – February 1, 1958) was an American physicist who shared the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics with George Paget Thomson "for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals". Earl ...
won the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of electron diffraction in the famous
Davisson–Germer experiment The Davisson–Germer experiment was a 1923–1927 experiment by Clinton Davisson and Lester Germer at Bell Labs, Western Electric (later Bell Labs), in which electrons, scattered by the surface of a crystal of nickel metal, displayed a diffrac ...
, which confirmed the de Broglie hypothesis that particles of matter have a wave-like nature, which is a central tenet of
quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...
. In particular, their observation of diffraction allowed the first measurement of a
wavelength In physics and mathematics, wavelength or spatial period of a wave or periodic function is the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. In other words, it is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same ''phase (waves ...
for
electrons The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary charge, elementary electric charge. It is a fundamental particle that comprises the ordinary matter that makes up the universe, along with up qua ...
. *
Kevlar Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s as ...
– Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at
DuPont Dupont, DuPont, Du Pont, duPont, or du Pont may refer to: People * Dupont (surname) Dupont, also spelled as DuPont, duPont, Du Pont, or du Pont is a French surname meaning "of the bridge", historically indicating that the holder of the surname re ...
in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires. Kevlar has many applications, ranging from bicycle tires and racing sails to bulletproof vests, all due to its high tensile strength-to-weight ratio; by this measure, it is five times stronger than steel. *
Spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets electromagnetic spectra. In narrower contexts, spectroscopy is the precise study of color as generalized from visible light to all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. Spectro ...
John L. Hall won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics with
Theodor W. Hänsch Theodor Wolfgang Hänsch (; born 30 October 1941) is a German physicist. He received one-fourth of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics for "contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb ...
and Roy J. Glauber for his pioneering work on laser-based precision spectroscopy and the optical
frequency comb A frequency comb or spectral comb is a spectrum made of discrete and regularly spaced spectral lines. In optics, a frequency comb can be generated by certain laser sources. A number of mechanisms exist for obtaining an optical frequency comb, i ...
technique. *
Neutron scattering Neutron scattering, the irregular dispersal of free neutrons by matter, can refer to either the naturally occurring physical process itself or to the man-made experimental techniques that use the natural process for investigating materials. Th ...
Clifford G. Shull was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics with Canadian Bertram Brockhouse for their pioneering work in neutron scattering, a technique that reveals where atoms are within a material like ricocheting bullets reveal where obstacles are in the dark.


Computer and applied sciences

* Alice (software)
freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...
(for non-commercial purposes)
object-based An object-based language is a programming language that provides a construct to encapsulate state and behavior as an object. A language that also supports inheritance or subtyping is classified as object-oriented. Even though object-oriented seems ...
educational programming language An educational programming language (EPL) is a programming language used primarily as a learning tool, and a starting point before transitioning to more complex programming languages. Types of educational programming languages Assembly languages ...
with an
integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a Application software, software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, an ...
(IDE). *
Andrew Project The Andrew Project was a distributed computing environment developed at Carnegie Mellon University beginning in 1982. It was an ambitious project for its time and resulted in an unprecedentedly vast and accessible university computing infrastructu ...
distributed computing Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different networked computers. The components of a distributed system commu ...
environment developed at Carnegie Mellon beginning in 1982. It was an ambitious project for its time and resulted in an unprecedentedly vast and accessible university computing infrastructure. The goal was to have connected
3M computer The 3M computer industrial goal was first proposed in the early 1980s by Raj Reddy and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) as a minimum specification for academic and technical workstations. It requires at least one megabyte of m ...
workstations.CMU's overview of the history of the Andrew Project
*
Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
– Several of the first AI software programs were created at Carnegie Mellon. These include the
Logic Theorist Logic Theorist is a computer program written in 1956 by Allen Newell, Herbert A. Simon, and Cliff Shaw. , and It was the first program deliberately engineered to perform automated reasoning, and has been described as "the first artificial intelli ...
,
General Problem Solver General Problem Solver (GPS) is a computer program created in 1957 by Herbert A. Simon, J. C. Shaw, and Allen Newell ( RAND Corporation) intended to work as a universal problem solver machine. In contrast to the former Logic Theorist project, ...
, and Soar. * Autonomous vehicle
Navlab Navlab is a series of autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles developed by teams from The Robotics Institute at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. Later models were produced under a new department created specifically for ...
, the first
autonomous car A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car (AC), driverless car, robotic car or robo-car, is a car that is capable of operating with reduced or no User input, human input. They are sometimes called robotaxi, robotaxis, though this te ...
program was developed by Carnegie Mellon. Since then,
H1ghlander H1ghlander is an autonomous vehicle. Created by Carnegie Mellon University's Red Team, it is a heavily modified 1999 HUMMER H1. It competed in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. The sensors used by H1ghlander include LIDAR laser-ranging unit ...
and
Sandstorm A dust storm, also called a sandstorm, is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Fine particles are transported b ...
autonomous vehicles were developed at Carnegie Mellon and placed 3rd and 2nd in the
DARPA Grand Challenge The DARPA Grand Challenge is a prize competition for American vehicle automation, autonomous vehicles, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the most prominent research organization of the United States Department of Defense. Uni ...
and Carnegie Mellon's Boss won the
DARPA Grand Challenge (2007) The third driverless car competition of the DARPA Grand Challenge was commonly known as the DARPA Urban Challenge. It took place on November 3, 2007 at the site of the now-closed George Air Force Base (currently used as Southern California Log ...
. The university continues to be a leader in autonomous research and development. *
Dynamic random-access memory Dynamics (from Greek language, Greek δυναμικός ''dynamikos'' "powerful", from δύναμις ''dynamis'' "power (disambiguation), power") or dynamic may refer to: Physics and engineering * Dynamics (mechanics), the study of forces and t ...
– In 1966, Robert H. Dennard invented the one-transistor memory cell consisting of a transistor and a capacitor for which a patent was issued in 1968. It became the basis for today's dynamic random-access memory (DRAM). *
MEMS MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) is the technology of microscopic devices incorporating both electronic and moving parts. MEMS are made up of components between 1 and 100 micrometres in size (i.e., 0.001 to 0.1 mm), and MEMS devices ...
Harvey C. Nathanson invented the first MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) device of the type now found in products ranging from iPhones to automobiles. Typical MEMS devices include the accelerometers found in smartphones and video game controllers, and the gyroscopes used in automobiles and wearables. *
Xerox PARC Future Concepts division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC and Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a div ...
– Founded in 1969 by
George Pake George E. Pake (April 1, 1924 – March 4, 2004) was a physicist, academic, and research executive primarily known for helping found Xerox PARC. Early life Pake was raised in Kent, Ohio. His father was an English instructor at Kent Stat ...
and Jack Goldman, Xerox PARC has been at the heart of numerous revolutionary computer developments as laser printing, Ethernet, the modern personal computer, graphical user interface (GUI) and desktop paradigm, object-oriented programming, ubiquitous computing, electronic paper, amorphous silicon (a-Si) applications, the computer mouse, and advancing very-large-scale integration (VLSI) for semiconductors. *
BLISS BLISS is a system programming language developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) by W. A. Wulf, D. B. Russell, and A. N. Habermann around 1970. It was perhaps the best known system language until C debuted a few years later. Since then, C ...
system programming language A system programming language is a programming language used for system programming; such languages are designed for writing system software, which usually requires different development approaches when compared with application software. Eds ...
developed at Carnegie Mellon by W. A. Wulf, D. B. Russell, and A. N. Habermann around 1970. It was perhaps the best known systems programming language until C made its debut in 1972. *
Emoticon An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for emotion icon, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using Character (symbol), characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers and Alphabet, letters—to express a person's feelings, mood ...
– The first true emoticon was developed at Carnegie Mellon by
Scott Fahlman Scott Elliott Fahlman (born March 21, 1948) is an American computer scientist and Professor Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University's Language Technologies Institute and Computer Science Department. He is notable for early work on automated pla ...
in 1982. *
Hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag operator that is prefaced by the hash symbol, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services–especially Twitter and Tumblr–as a form of user-generated tagging that enable ...
– In a 2007 tweet,
Chris Messina Chris Messina (born August 11, 1974)Hochberg, Mina.Chris Messina stars in 'Ruby Sparks'. ''Newsday'' (Long Island, New York). August 8, 2012: "...the actor, who turns 38 Saturday ugust 11, 2012 After graduating from Northport ew YorkHigh Scho ...
proposed vertical/associational grouping of messages, trends, and events on
Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...
by the means of hashtags. *
Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
class-based Class-based programming, or more commonly class-orientation, is a style of object-oriented programming (OOP) in which inheritance occurs via defining ''classes'' of objects, instead of inheritance occurring via the objects alone (compare prototyp ...
object oriented Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of '' objects''. Objects can contain data (called fields, attributes or properties) and have actions they can perform (called procedures or methods and impleme ...
programming language that was originally developed by
James Gosling James Arthur Gosling (born 19 May 1955) is a Canadian computer scientist, best known as the founder and lead designer behind the Java (programming language), Java programming language. Gosling was elected a member of the National Academy of E ...
at
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...
(which has since been acquired by
Oracle An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...
) and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. *
Mach (kernel) Mach () is an operating system kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University by Richard Rashid and Avie Tevanian to support operating system research, primarily distributed and parallel computing. Mach is often considered one of the earliest ...
Richard Rashid Richard Farris Rashid is the founder of Microsoft Research, which he created in 1991. Between 1991 and 2013, as its chief research officer and director, he oversaw the worldwide operations for Microsoft Research which grew to encompass more than ...
and
Avie Tevanian Avadis "Avie" Tevanian (born 1961) is an American software engineer and former senior vice president of software engineering at Apple from 1997 to 2003, before serving as chief software technology officer from 2003 to 2006. There, he redesigned ...
developed Mach at Carnegie Mellon from 1985 to 1994, ending with Mach 3.0, which is a true
microkernel In computer science, a microkernel (often abbreviated as μ-kernel) is the near-minimum amount of software that can provide the mechanisms needed to implement an operating system (OS). These mechanisms include low-level address space management, ...
. Mach was developed as a replacement for the kernel in the
BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as Berkeley Unix or BSD Unix, is a discontinued Unix operating system developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley, beginni ...
version of
Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
, so no new operating system would have to be designed around it. Experimental research on Mach appears to have ended, although Mach and its derivatives exist within a number of commercial operating systems. These include
NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT, founded by Steve Jobs, in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its ...
and
OPENSTEP OpenStep is an object-oriented application programming interface (API) specification developed by NeXT. It provides a framework for building graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and developing software applications. OpenStep was designed to be plat ...
, upon which
macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
and
iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...
are based. *
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...
network – Alex Hills created the first wi-fi network using a
local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, campus, or building, and has its network equipment and interconnects locally managed. LANs facilitate the distribution of da ...
(LAN) on the Carnegie Mellon campus in 1993.


Companies and entrepreneurship

The Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship acts as Carnegie Mellon's
startup accelerator Startup accelerators, also known as seed accelerators, are fixed-term, cohort-based programs, that include mentorship and educational components, and (sometimes) culminate in a public pitch event or demo day. While traditional business incubato ...
. Jim Swartz, co-founder of
Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is a global venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ope ...
, pledged $31 Million to establish a hub for university wide entrepreneurial activities. His gift is the fifth largest Carnegie Mellon has received. In 2016, the center opened providing a
business incubator A business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services, starting with management training and office space, and ending with venture ...
and makerspace. The center employs Entrepreneurs-in-Residence who mentor founders of early stage companies consisting of students, faculty, and alumni. Startups work on their ideas throughout the year culminating at an annual Demo Day where they showcase their company to the public. Carnegie Mellon's alumni, faculty, and staff have founded many notable companies, some of which are shown below. *
Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. Activision Blizzard currently includes three operating units: Activision, Blizzard Entertainment and King (company), King. Founded in July 2 ...
, 1979 (as
Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...
), founding CEO Jim Levy (B.S., M.S.) *
Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), formerly Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American software, computer software company based in San Jose, California. It offers a wide range of programs from web design tools, photo manipulation and vector creation, through to ...
, 1982, co-founder
Charles Geschke Charles Matthew "Chuck" Geschke (September 11, 1939 – April 16, 2021) was an American businessman and computer scientist best known for founding the graphics and publishing software company Adobe Inc. with John Warnock in 1982, with whom he ...
(Ph.D.) *
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...
, 1982, co-founders Vinod Khosla (M.S.) and
Andy Bechtolsheim Andreas Maria Maximilian Freiherr von Mauchenheim genannt Bechtolsheim (born 30 September 1955) is a German electrical engineer, entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and was its chief hardware designer. he's 68th w ...
(M.S.) *
Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is a global venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ope ...
, 1983, co-founder Jim Swartz (M.S.) *
NeXT NeXT, Inc. (later NeXT Computer, Inc. and NeXT Software, Inc.) was an American technology company headquartered in Redwood City, California that specialized in computer workstations for higher education and business markets, and later develope ...
, 1985, co-founding VP Engineering
Avie Tevanian Avadis "Avie" Tevanian (born 1961) is an American software engineer and former senior vice president of software engineering at Apple from 1997 to 2003, before serving as chief software technology officer from 2003 to 2006. There, he redesigned ...
(M.S., Ph.D.) *
Transarc Transarc Corporation was a private Pittsburgh-based software company founded in 1989 by Jeffrey Eppinger, Michael L. Kazar, Alfred Spector, and Dean Thompson of Carnegie Mellon University. Transarc commercialized the Andrew File System (AFS), ...
, 1989, co-founders
Alfred Spector Alfred Zalmon Spector is an American computer scientist and research manager. He is a Professor of Practice in the MIT EECS Department and was previously CTO of Two Sigma Investments. Before that, he was Vice President of Research and Special Ini ...
(Professor), Jeffrey Eppinger (B.S., M.S., Ph.D.), Mike Kazar (Ph.D.), Dean Thompson (B.S.) *
FORE Systems FORE Systems, Inc., was a computer network switching equipment company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1990 to supply Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) cards for workstation computers, it soon branched out to become a major supplier in ...
, 1990, co-founders Francois Bitz (B.S., M.S.), Onat Menzilcioglu (M.S., Ph.D.), Robert Sansum (Ph.D.) and Eric C. Cooper (Professor) *
Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...
, 1991, founder
Richard Rashid Richard Farris Rashid is the founder of Microsoft Research, which he created in 1991. Between 1991 and 2013, as its chief research officer and director, he oversaw the worldwide operations for Microsoft Research which grew to encompass more than ...
(Professor) *
IDEO IDEO () is a design firm, design and consulting firm with offices in the U.S., England, and China. It was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 1991. The company's 500 staff uses a design thinking approach to design products, services, environmen ...
, 1991, founder David M. Kelley (B.S.) * Appaloosa Management, 1993, founder
David Tepper David Alan Tepper (born September 11, 1957) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager. He is the owner of the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League (NFL) and Charlotte FC of Major League Soccer (MLS). Tepper is the founder and ...
(M.B.A) *
Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...
, 1993, co-founder
Marc Ewing Marc Ewing is an American computer engineer and entrepreneur. He is the creator and originator of the Red Hat brand of software, most notably the Red Hat range of Linux operating system distributions. He was involved in the 86open project in the ...
(B.S.) *
Cognizant Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational information technology consulting and outsourcing company originally founded in India. It is headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey, United States. Co ...
, 1994, co-founder Francisco D'Souza (M.B.A) *
Juniper Networks Juniper Networks, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company develops and markets networking products, including Router (computing), routers, Network switch, switches, network management so ...
, 1996, founder Pradeep Sindhu (Ph.D.) *
Symphony Technology Group STG Partners, LLC (STG) is an American private equity firm and based in Menlo Park, California. Its predecessor, Symphony Technology Group ("Symphony") was founded in 2002Dorbian, Iris (July 1, 2024) STG Rising: Hailing the Newcomer on the 100. ...
, 2002, founder Romesh Wadhwani (Ph.D.) * Astrobotic Technology, 2007, founder Red Whittaker (M.S., Ph.D., Professor) *
Google X X Development LLC, doing business as X (formerly Google X), is an American semi-secret research and development facility and organization founded by Google in January 2010. X has its headquarters about a mile and a half from Google's corporate ...
, 2010, co-founders
Sebastian Thrun Sebastian Thrun (born May 14, 1967) is a German-American entrepreneur, educator, and computer scientist. He is chief executive officer of Kitty Hawk Corporation, and chairman and co-founder of Udacity. Before that, he was a Google vice preside ...
(Professor), Yoky Matsuoka (Professor), and
Astro Teller Eric "Astro" Teller (born 29 May 1970) is an American entrepreneur, computer scientist, and author, with expertise in the field of intelligent technology. Early life and education Teller was born in Cambridge, England, and raised in Evanston, ...
(Ph.D.) *
Nest A nest is a structure built for certain animals to hold Egg (biology), eggs or young. Although nests are most closely associated with birds, members of all classes of vertebrates and some invertebrates construct nests. They may be composed of ...
, 2010, co-founder Matt Rogers (B.S., M.S.) *
Duolingo Duolingo, Inc. is an American educational technology company that produces learning Mobile app, apps and provides Language assessment, language certification. Duolingo offers courses on 43 languages, ranging from English language, English, Fre ...
, 2011, founders
Luis von Ahn Luis von Ahn (; born 19 August 1978) is a Guatemalan-American entrepreneur and software developer. He is the founder of the company reCAPTCHA, which was sold to Google in 2009, and the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo. For these projects and othe ...
(Ph.D., Professor) &
Severin Hacker Severin Hacker (born July 6, 1984) is a Swiss-American computer scientist who is the co-founder and CTO of Duolingo, the world's most popular language-learning platform. Biography Hacker was born and raised in Zug and studied at ETH Zurich. I ...
(Ph.D.) *
Coursera Coursera Inc. () is an American global massive open online course provider. It was founded in 2012 by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offe ...
, 2012, founder
Andrew Ng Andrew Yan-Tak Ng (; born April 18, 1976) is a British-American computer scientist and Internet Entrepreneur, technology entrepreneur focusing on machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Ng was a cofounder and head of Google Brain and ...
(B.S.) *
Defense Innovation Unit The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), also called Unit X, is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) organization founded to help the U.S. military make faster use of emerging commercial technologies. Launched in 2015, the organization has been c ...
, 2015, founder Maynard Holliday (B.S.) * Argo AI, 2016, co-founder Peter Rander (M.S., Ph.D.) * Nuro, 2016, co-founder Dave Ferguson (M.S., Ph.D.) * Aurora Innovation, 2017, co-founder Chris Urmson (Ph.D.)


Student life

Carnegie Mellon's student life includes over 400 student organizations, art galleries, and various unique traditions. Student organizations provide social, service, media, academic, spiritual, recreational, sport, religious, political, cultural, and governance opportunities. Carnegie Mellon's campus houses several galleries such as ''The Frame'', a student-devoted gallery, and the Regina Gouger Miller Gallery, an art gallery that specializes in contemporary professional artists. The Carnegie Mellon School of Music, Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, and the student-run theatrical organization
Scotch'n'Soda Scotch'n'Soda is a student-run theatre organization that resides on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University. Its initial dedication was the creation and production of original musicals, but has now taken to performing both professionally publis ...
provides campus with a variety of performance arts events. The university has a strong Scottish motif inspired by Andrew Carnegie's Scottish heritage, as well as the Mellon family's Scots-Irish ancestry. Examples include Scotty, the
Scottish Terrier The Scottish Terrier (; also known as the Aberdeen Terrier), popularly called the Scottie, is a dog breed, breed of dog. Initially one of the highland breeds of terrier that were grouped under the name of ''Skye Terrier'', it is one of five br ...
mascot, '' The Tartan'' student newspaper, Skibo Gymnasium, The
Thistle Thistle is the common name of a group of flowering plants characterized by leaves with sharp spikes on the margins, mostly in the family Asteraceae. Prickles can also occur all over the planton the stem and on the flat parts of the leaves. T ...
yearbook, and the Céilidh weekend every fall semester for homecoming.


Housing

Carnegie Mellon offers conventional housing for its students through single-gender, coresidential, and special interest options. Students can choose from a variety of housing options. The four options for students are traditional, semi-suite, suite, and apartments. The Traditional is a typical college dormitory setting, a long hallway with a series of 1-3 person rooms and a community bathroom shared with an entire floor or wing. Semi-Suite offers more privacy through 1-4 person rooms with 3-5 residents sharing one semi-private bathroom. Suite is similar to Semi-Suite but contains additional bedrooms, a bathroom, and living room/lounge area shared with 3-8 other residents. Apartments are shared between 1-3 people and may contain additional bedrooms, a semi-private bathroom, a living room, and kitchen shared with the other residents. Upperclassmen have additional options for housing, which include town houses and a larger variety of one or two bedroom apartments. There are 27 residential buildings on campus and even more off campus. First-year students are assigned to the dedicated first-year residence halls on campus including Morewood E-Tower, Morewood Gardens, Residence on Fifth, Shirley Apartments, as well as Boss, Donner, Hamerschlag, McGill, Mudge, Scobell, and Stever Houses. Approximately one-third of upperclassmen choose to continue living on campus through university housing. Options for upperclassmen include Fifth & Clyde, Morewood Gardens, West Wing, Doherty, Fairfax, Margaret Morrison, Fifth Neville, Shady Oak, Shirley, Forbes & Beeler, and Woodlawn Apartments as well as Henderson, Resnik, Roselawn, Spirit, Tech, Webster, and Welch Houses.


Fraternities and sororities

The Greek tradition at Carnegie Mellon began over 100 years ago with the founding of the first fraternity on campus,
Theta Xi Theta Xi () is a North American Greek-letter social college fraternity. It was founded at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1864. Of all the social fraternities today, Theta Xi was the only one founded during the Civil War. Its Grand Lodge is ...
, in 1912.


Specialized communities

In 2022, Welch House began to host the specialized Queer community, a living community suited to the needs of
non-binary Non-binary or genderqueer Gender identity, gender identities are those that are outside the male/female gender binary. Non-binary identities often fall under the transgender umbrella since non-binary people typically identify with a gende ...
students by allowing students to "live in the same room with any other student inclusive of sex assigned at birth, gender identity, gender expression, and/or sexual orientation". Welch House consists of semi-suite singles and doubles. In addition, Stever House hosts an all-gender floor for students who would prefer a traditional double. Spirit House is a residential community for upperclassmen designated for members of the SPIRIT student organization, a Black Student Union that serves as a haven for Black students within the Carnegie Mellon community and champions issues facing the Black community.


Traditions

In the early days of Carnegie Tech, there was a single bridge connecting Margaret Morrison Women's College with the Carnegie Institute of Technology. The bridge was a meeting place for students. In 1916, the bridge was taken down and the university filled in the area. The administration built a wooden fence as a new meeting place. The students did not understand why anyone would want to meet at a fence. The administration was about to give up and tear it down, but that night a fraternity, as a prank, painted the entire fence advertising a fraternity party. Ever since, painting the Fence has been a Carnegie Mellon tradition. The Fence at Carnegie Mellon lies at the center of campus, in the area known as "the Cut". Students guard the fence 24 hours a day, and, as long as two vigils are maintained, no other student may "take" the fence. The fence can then be painted by the group that has it, but only between midnight and 6 am. Only hand brushes may be used; the use of spray paint or paint rollers is considered vandalism and results in a fine. The previous paint cannot be stripped, and each new painting adds a new layer. The original wooden fence finally collapsed in the 1990s due to the weight from over 1' of surrounding paint, and was immediately replaced with an identical one manufactured from concrete. Today the fence is considered "the world's most painted object" by the ''
Guinness Book of World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, listi ...
''.


Athletics

The Carnegie Mellon Tartans were a founding member of the
University Athletic Association The University Athletic Association (UAA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference that competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III. Member schools are highly selective universities located in Georgia, Illino ...
of
NCAA Division III NCAA Division III (D-III) is the lowest division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. D-III consists of athletic programs at colleges and universities that do not offer athletic scholarships to student- ...
. Prior to World War II, Carnegie Mellon (as Carnegie Tech) played with what are now classified as
NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...
teams. In 1936, the Carnegie Tech riflery team won the national intercollegiate championship. The Carnegie Tech men's basketball team was a member of the Eastern Intercollegiate Conference throughout the conference's existence from 1932 to 1939 and won the conference championship in 1936, defeating
Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
in a conference championship playoff game. Varsity teams are fielded in basketball, track, cross country, football, golf, soccer, swimming and diving, volleyball, tennis, and softball. In addition, club teams exist in ultimate frisbee,
rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically a ...
, rugby, lacrosse, hockey, baseball, softball, skiing & snowboarding, soccer, volleyball, water polo, and cycling. Carnegie Mellon Athletics runs a comprehensive and popular intramural system, maintains facilities (primarily Skibo Gymnasium, Cohon University Center, Gesling Stadium, and the future Highmark Center for Health, Wellness and Athletics), and offers courses to students in fitness and sports. Carnegie Mellon's primary athletic rivals are fellow UAA schools
Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...
and
Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...
; the Tartans had an especially intense rivalry with the latter's football team from the 2000s to 2017.


Football

On November 28, 1926, the 6–2 Carnegie Technical Institute football team shut out the undefeated
Notre Dame Fighting Irish The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are the athletic teams that represent the University of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish participate in 26 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I intercollegiate sports and in the NCAA's Division ...
19–0 at
Forbes Field Forbes Field was a baseball park in the Oakland (Pittsburgh), Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1909 to June 28, 1970. It was the third home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the city's Major League Baseball (MLB) team, and the fir ...
.
Knute Rockne Knute Kenneth Rockne (; March 4, 1888 – March 31, 1931) was an American football player and coach at the University of Notre Dame. Leading Notre Dame for 13 seasons, Rockne accumulated over 100 wins and three national championships. Rockne is ...
, the coach of the Irish at the time, was so confident that the Irish would defeat "tiny Carnegie Tech" that he decided to skip the game and travel to Chicago to watch the Army-Navy football game for scouting purposes. It was only later that he found out by telegram that the Irish had suffered their first loss of the season. ESPN compared the upset to the Appalachian State victory over the University of Michigan in 2007. The game was ranked the fourth-greatest upset in
college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...
history by
ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
. Since 2014, the Tartans play in the Presidents' Athletic Conference at the
NCAA Division III NCAA Division III (D-III) is the lowest division of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States. D-III consists of athletic programs at colleges and universities that do not offer athletic scholarships to student- ...
level. The head coach of the football team is Ryan Larsen, who is currently the defending Presidents' Athletic Conference coach of the year. Prior to losing in the Sweet 16 of this year's D3 playoffs, the Tartans held a 17-game win streak which was, at the time, the longest win streak across all NCAA divisions in football.


Track and cross country

In recent years, the varsity track and cross country programs have seen outstanding success on the Division III national level. The men's cross country team has finished in the top 15 in the nation each of the last three years, and has boasted several individual
All-America The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed on outstanding athletes in the United States who are considered to be among the best athletes in their respective sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an Al ...
ns. The men's track team has also boasted several individual All-Americans spanning sprinting, distance, and field disciplines. Recent All-Americans from the track team are Bram Miller (2021), Tommy Vandenberg (2014–2015), Brian Harvey (2007–2009), Davey Quinn (2007),
Nik Bonaddio Nik Bonaddio is an American Internet entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of the sports analytics site numberFire. In 2017, he was named Chief Product Officer at FanDuel, who acquired numberFire in September 2015. Career After graduation, Bonad ...
(2004, 2005), Mark Davis (2004, 2005), Russel Verbofsky (2004, 2005) and Kiley Williams. Carolyn Lowe (10,000 meters 1992) is the only track athlete to win an NCAA Division III championship.


Volleyball

With much of the team's support, Lauren Schmidt received the NCAA Pennsylvania Woman of the Year award (2003), was a two-time All-American (2001 and 2002), a four-time All-University Athletic Association selection (1999–2002), and the conference's Player of the Year (2001).


Intramurals

Students can participate in any level of competition across multiple sports including
wiffle ball Wiffle ball is a scaled back variation of baseball that was developed in 1953 in Fairfield, Connecticut. Originally, it was intended to be played in confined space or otherwise small area, but became a popular outdoor activity. The sport is pl ...
,
dodgeball Dodgeball is a team sports, team sport in which players on two opposing teams try to throw balls and hit opponents while avoiding being hit themselves. The objective of each team is to eliminate all members of the opposing team by hitting them w ...
,
basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...
,
flag football Flag football is a variant of gridiron football (American football or Canadian football depending on location) where, instead of Tackle (football move)#Gridiron football, tackling players to the ground, the defensive team must remove a flag or ...
, ultimate frisbee and many more.


Alumni and faculty

There are more than 117,000 Carnegie Mellon alumni worldwide with the graduating class of 2022. Alumni and current/former faculty include 21
Nobel laureates The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...
, six members of the
National Academy of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), known as the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineerin ...
, 22 members of the
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, 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 ...
, 72 members of the
National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...
, two
MacArthur Fellows The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...
, 24 Guggenheim Fellows, seven Packard fellows, 142
Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...
recipients (including ten time recipient
Steven Bochco Steven Ronald Bochco (December 16, 1943 – April 1, 2018) was an American television writer and producer. He developed a number of television series, mostly crime dramas, including '' Hill Street Blues''; ''L.A. Law''; '' Doogie Howser, M.D.''; ...
), 12
Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...
recipients, 52
Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...
recipients, two winners of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology, and 13
Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in the fi ...
recipients. Alumni in the fine arts include artists
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...
,
Cote de Pablo María José de Pablo Fernández, known professionally as Coté de Pablo, is a Chilean-American actress and singer. Born in Santiago, Chile, she moved to the United States at the age of 10, where she studied acting. De Pablo co-hosted episode ...
, Philip Pearlstein, John Currin, Shalom Neuman,
Jonathan Borofsky Jonathan Borofsky (born December 24, 1942) is an American sculptor and printmaker who lives and works in Ogunquit, Maine. Early life and education Borofsky was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Carnegie M ...
and Burton Morris; authors
John-Michael Tebelak John-Michael Tebelak (September 17, 1949 – April 2, 1985) was an American playwright and Theatre director, director. He is best known for creating the musical ''Godspell'', based on the Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Saint Matthew, with the c ...
and
Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut ( ; November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American author known for his Satire, satirical and darkly humorous novels. His published work includes fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfict ...
; Screenwriter Michael Goldenberg; television series creator,
Steven Bochco Steven Ronald Bochco (December 16, 1943 – April 1, 2018) was an American television writer and producer. He developed a number of television series, mostly crime dramas, including '' Hill Street Blues''; ''L.A. Law''; '' Doogie Howser, M.D.''; ...
, actors René Auberjonois, Katy Mixon,
Holly Hunter Holly Hunter (born March 20, 1958) is an American actress. For her performance as a mute Scottish woman in ''The Piano'' (1993), she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She earned three more Academy Award nominations for '' Broadcast News'' ( ...
, Matt Bomer, and
Zachary Quinto Zachary John Quinto (; born June 2, 1977) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Sylar, the primary antagonist from the science fiction drama series ''Heroes (American TV series), Heroes'' (2006–2010); Spock in the film ''Star Trek ...
, children's author E.L. Konigsberg, David Edward Byrd, Broadway actress Amanda Jane Cooper, Rock and Broadway Theater Poster Artist and graphic designer; Indian film actor
Sushma Seth Sushma Seth (born 20 June 1936) is an Indian stage, film and television actress. She started her career in the 1950s, and was a founder member of the Delhi-based theatre group Yatrik. Her first film was '' Junoon'' in 1978. She is known for pl ...
, Boston Pops conductor
Keith Lockhart Keith Alan Lockhart (born November 7, 1959) is an American conductor. He is the Conductor of the Boston Pops orchestra, and the Artistic Director of the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina. Keith Lockhart, the conductor, is the brother of ...
, mountaineer and author
Aron Ralston Aron Lee Ralston (born October 27, 1975) is an American mountaineer, mechanical engineer, and motivational speaker, known for surviving a canyoneering accident by cutting off part of his own right arm. On April 26, 2003, during a solo descent o ...
, and architect
Mao Yisheng Dr. Mao Yisheng a.k.a. Thomson Eason Mao (; January 9, 1896 – November 12, 1989) was a Chinese structural engineer and social activist. He was one of the most famous Chinese structural engineers, a pioneer in bridge construction, and a social ...
. Alumni in the sciences include
Charles Geschke Charles Matthew "Chuck" Geschke (September 11, 1939 – April 16, 2021) was an American businessman and computer scientist best known for founding the graphics and publishing software company Adobe Inc. with John Warnock in 1982, with whom he ...
, co-founder and chairman of
Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), formerly Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American software, computer software company based in San Jose, California. It offers a wide range of programs from web design tools, photo manipulation and vector creation, through to ...
; Stephanie Kwolek, inventor of
Kevlar Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s as ...
;
James Gosling James Arthur Gosling (born 19 May 1955) is a Canadian computer scientist, best known as the founder and lead designer behind the Java (programming language), Java programming language. Gosling was elected a member of the National Academy of E ...
, creator of the
Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
programming language,
Andy Bechtolsheim Andreas Maria Maximilian Freiherr von Mauchenheim genannt Bechtolsheim (born 30 September 1955) is a German electrical engineer, entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and was its chief hardware designer. he's 68th w ...
, co-founder of
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...
;
David Kelley David Christopher Kelley (born June 23, 1949) is an American philosopher. He is a professed Objectivist, though his position that Objectivism can be revised and influenced by other schools of thought has prompted disagreements with other Obj ...
, co-founder of
IDEO IDEO () is a design firm, design and consulting firm with offices in the U.S., England, and China. It was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 1991. The company's 500 staff uses a design thinking approach to design products, services, environmen ...
;
George Pake George E. Pake (April 1, 1924 – March 4, 2004) was a physicist, academic, and research executive primarily known for helping found Xerox PARC. Early life Pake was raised in Kent, Ohio. His father was an English instructor at Kent Stat ...
, founder of
Xerox PARC Future Concepts division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC and Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a div ...
;
Marc Ewing Marc Ewing is an American computer engineer and entrepreneur. He is the creator and originator of the Red Hat brand of software, most notably the Red Hat range of Linux operating system distributions. He was involved in the 86open project in the ...
, co-founder of
Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...
; Jim Levy, founding CEO of
Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...
; billionaire
hedge fund A hedge fund is a Pooling (resource management), pooled investment fund that holds Market liquidity, liquid assets and that makes use of complex trader (finance), trading and risk management techniques to aim to improve investment performance and ...
investor and owner of the
Carolina Panthers The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South division. The t ...
of the
National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
David Tepper David Alan Tepper (born September 11, 1957) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager. He is the owner of the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League (NFL) and Charlotte FC of Major League Soccer (MLS). Tepper is the founder and ...
;
Scott Fahlman Scott Elliott Fahlman (born March 21, 1948) is an American computer scientist and Professor Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University's Language Technologies Institute and Computer Science Department. He is notable for early work on automated pla ...
, creator of the
emoticon An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for emotion icon, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using Character (symbol), characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers and Alphabet, letters—to express a person's feelings, mood ...
;
Chris Messina Chris Messina (born August 11, 1974)Hochberg, Mina.Chris Messina stars in 'Ruby Sparks'. ''Newsday'' (Long Island, New York). August 8, 2012: "...the actor, who turns 38 Saturday ugust 11, 2012 After graduating from Northport ew YorkHigh Scho ...
, creator of the
hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag operator that is prefaced by the hash symbol, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services–especially Twitter and Tumblr–as a form of user-generated tagging that enable ...
; tech executive and entrepreneur Kai-Fu Lee; and
astronauts An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...
Edgar Mitchell Edgar Dean "Ed" Mitchell (September 17, 1930 – February 4, 2016) was a United States Navy officer and United States Naval Aviator, aviator, test pilot, Aerospace engineering, aeronautical engineer, Ufology, ufologist, and NASA astronaut. ...
(
Apollo 14 Apollo 14 (January 31February 9, 1971) was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to Moon landing, land on the Moon, and the first to land in the Geology of the Moon#Highlands, lunar highlands. It was the las ...
) and Judith Resnik, who perished in the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' disaster.
John Forbes Nash John Forbes Nash Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015), known and published as John Nash, was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, real algebraic geometry, differential geometry, and partial differenti ...
, a 1948 graduate and winner of the 1994
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (), commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics(), is an award in the field of economic sciences adminis ...
, was the subject of the book and subsequent film '' A Beautiful Mind''.
Alan Perlis Alan Jay Perlis (April 1, 1922 – February 7, 1990) was an American computer scientist and professor at Purdue University, Carnegie Mellon University and Yale University. He is best known for his pioneering work in programming languages and was t ...
, a 1943 graduate, was a pioneer in programming languages and recipient of the first Turing Award. Alumni in politics include U.S. Representatives
Susie Lee Suzanne Marie Lee (née Kelley; born November 7, 1966) is an American politician who has served as the U.S. representative for Nevada's Nevada's 3rd congressional district, 3rd congressional district since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party ...
and Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Puerto Rican politician Carmen Yulín Cruz, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles L. Evans, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, and former
General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...
CEO and Secretary of Defense,
Charles Erwin Wilson Charles Erwin Wilson (July 18, 1890 – September 26, 1961) was an American engineer and businessman who served as United States Secretary of Defense from 1953 to 1957 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Known as "Engine Charlie", he was pr ...
.


In popular culture

The campus of Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh has served as the locale for many motion pictures. Alumnus George A. Romero filmed '' Creepshow'' (1982) in and around Margaret Morrison Carnegie Hall. Much of the on-campus scenes in the 2000 film '' Wonder Boys'', starring
Michael Douglas Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the ...
and
Tobey Maguire Tobias Vincent Maguire (born 27 June 1975) is an American actor and film producer. He is best known for starring as Peter Parker (2002 film series character), Spider-Man in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man in film#Sam Raimi's trilogy, ''Spider-Man'' tr ...
, were filmed in Carnegie Mellon's campus. Other movies filmed at Carnegie Mellon include '' The Mothman Prophecies'', ''
Dogma Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held definitively and without the possibility of reform. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Islam ...
'', ''
Lorenzo's Oil ''Lorenzo's Oil'' is a 1992 drama film directed and co-written by George Miller. It is based on the true story of Augusto and Michaela Odone, parents who search for a cure for their son Lorenzo's adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), leading to the d ...
'', '' Hoffa'', ''
The Dark Knight Rises ''The Dark Knight Rises'' is a 2012 superhero film directed by Christopher Nolan, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Jonathan Nolan, and the story with David S. Goyer. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, it is the final instal ...
'', '' Where'd You Go, Bernadette'', and ''
Flashdance ''Flashdance'' is a 1983 American romantic drama dance film directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Jennifer Beals as a passionate young dancer, Alex Owens, who aspires to become a professional ballerina, alongside Michael Nouri, who plays her ...
''. The university is also featured prominently in the films '' Smart People'', '' Monkey Shines'', and in the anime '' Summer Wars''. The musical '' Pippin'' was originally conceived by
Stephen Schwartz Stephen Lawrence Schwartz (born March 6, 1948) is an American musical theatre composer and lyricist. In a career spanning over five decades, Schwartz has written hit musicals such as ''Godspell'' (1971), ''Pippin (musical), Pippin'' (1972), and ...
as a student musical performed by the
Scotch'n'Soda Scotch'n'Soda is a student-run theatre organization that resides on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University. Its initial dedication was the creation and production of original musicals, but has now taken to performing both professionally publis ...
student theatre troupe. Schwartz also collaborated with drama student
John-Michael Tebelak John-Michael Tebelak (September 17, 1949 – April 2, 1985) was an American playwright and Theatre director, director. He is best known for creating the musical ''Godspell'', based on the Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Saint Matthew, with the c ...
to expand his master's thesis project titled ''
Godspell ''Godspell'' is a musical in two acts with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by John-Michael Tebelak. The show is structured as a series of parables, primarily based on the Gospel of Matthew, interspersed with music mostly set t ...
'', created under the direction of Lawrence Carra, into a musical. While enrolled at Carnegie Mellon, acting students
Michael McKean Michael John McKean (; born October 17, 1947) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, composer, singer, and musician. Over his career he has received a Grammy Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. ...
and David Lander (class of 1969) created the characters "Lenny and Squiggy". The pair continued performing the characters in live comedy routines before joining the cast of the TV series ''
Laverne & Shirley ''Laverne & Shirley'' is an American television sitcom that ran for eight seasons on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from January 27, 1976, to May 10, 1983. A spin-off of ''Happy Days'', ''Laverne & Shirley'' stars Penny Marshall and Cindy Wi ...
''. In 2008, Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch's " Last Lecture" became a pop culture phenomenon. Based on a lecture he gave in September 2007 – shortly after he learned his cancer had metastasized – his book quickly rose to the top of bestseller lists around the country. Named in ''
Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' magazine's ''Time'' 100 list of influential people, he died in July 2008 from pancreatic cancer. In 2003, Carnegie Mellon established the Robot Hall of Fame in partnership with the Carnegie Science Center. The 68th Tony Awards in 2014 announced Carnegie Mellon as its first educational partner in jointly awarding the "Tony Honor for Excellence in Theatre Education", which will "honor kindergarten through high school (K-12) theatre educators".Gans, Andrew
"Zachary Quinto and Matt Bomer Will Introduce New Educator Honor at 2014 Tony Awards"
playbill.com, June 3, 2014


See also

*
Association of American Universities The Association of American Universities (AAU) is an organization of predominantly American research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Founded in 1900, it consists of 69 public and private ...
* Association of Independent Technological Universities * Astrobotic Technology * Disney Research * EteRNA * IBM/Google Cloud Computing University Initiative * List of Carnegie Mellon University people * List of Carnegie Mellon University traditions


Notes


References


External links

*
Athletics website
{{Authority control 1900 establishments in Pennsylvania Universities and colleges established in 1900 Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation Historic Landmarks Universities and colleges in Pittsburgh Technological universities in the United States Universities and colleges formed by merger in the United States Private universities and colleges in Pennsylvania Need-blind educational institutions