Type | Public |
---|---|
Established | 1894 |
Parent institution | University of Texas at Austin |
Endowment | $780 million (November 2, 2023) [1] |
Dean | Roger Bonnecaze |
Academic staff | 289 |
Undergraduates | 6,112 (Fall 2023) [2] |
Postgraduates | 2.320 (Fall 2023) [3] |
Location |
The Cockrell School of Engineering is one of the eighteen colleges within the University of Texas at Austin. It has more than 8,000 students enrolled in eleven undergraduate and thirteen graduate programs. [4] Annual research expenditures are over $267 million and the school has the fourth-largest number of faculty in the National Academy of Engineering. [5] [6] [7]
Previously known as the College of Engineering, on July 11, 2007, the University of Texas at Austin renamed the College after 1936 graduate Ernest Cockrell Jr., whose family helped to build a $140 million endowment for the College. [8]
The College of Engineering at the University of Texas was established as the Department of Engineering in 1894. Thomas Ulvan (T.U.) Taylor became the College's first dean in 1906, and he introduced the "Ramshorn" symbol as a mark of academic excellence within the college. In 1910, Dean Taylor established the Engineers Loan Fund to support aspiring engineers. [9]
Over the years, the College of Engineering expanded with the addition of various departments, including Electrical Engineering (1903–), Civil Engineering (1903–), Mining Engineering (1903–1913), and Architecture (1905–1951). The Division of Engineering Research was established in 1915 to advance engineering knowledge through research initiatives. In subsequent years, the college underwent departmental name changes and expansions, reflecting advancements in engineering disciplines and technologies. [10]
On July 11, 2007, the college was renamed the Cockrell School of Engineering after 1936 graduate Ernest Cockrell Jr. [8]
From T.U. Taylor’s first college engineering course, to the renaming of the College of Engineering in honor of the Cockrell Family, to the grand opening of the one-of-a-kind Engineering Education and Research Center, Texas Engineering has experienced many milestones on its path to becoming one of the world’s highest-ranked and most respected engineering schools. [11]
Rankings, in parentheses, taken from the 2024-2025 edition of U.S. News & World Report . [12]
Overall: 10th [13]
Rankings, in parentheses, taken from the 2024-2025 edition of U.S. News & World Report . [14]
Overall: 8th [15]
The Ramshorn is one of the most prominent symbols associated with the College of Engineering. Its origins as such can be traced back to over a century ago, when T.U. Taylor, the first engineering faculty member and first dean of the College, began drawing the elaborate checkmark on students' work. A mark reserved for perfect papers, Taylor overheard a student remark he had received a "ramshorn" in 1905, from which the symbol took on its current interpretation and significance. [16] [17]
Alec's beginnings as the patron saint of the College came as the byproduct of the efforts of a group of sophomore engineers back in 1908.
Joe H. Gill and his engineering friends thoughtfully considered how to make a holiday of April Fool's Day. After an unsuccessful attempt involving tying cans around dogs' tails and releasing them to disrupt class, the group of students saw a wooden statue about five feet high while getting refreshments, which they requested to borrow. The next day, Gill presented the statue as their patron saint and traced his ancestry back to ancient times between classes. The presentation successfully broke up classes, and led to his christening as Alexander Frederick Claire, patron saint of UT engineers, exactly one year later. Alec was at the center of a friendly rivalry between law and engineering students for many years, and was subject to numerous escapades such as kidnappings and amputations. [18] Today, what is left of the original wooden statue is safely preserved in the engineering library. [19]
Every year, engineering groups on campus build new Alecs which are then voted on by the students. The winner is announced on April 1 during Alec's birthday party.
The Cockrell School of Engineering has formal organized research units that coordinate and promote faculty and student research. These units provide and maintain specialized research facilities for faculty within a designated field. [23]
The Cockrell School of Engineering is home to over 80 student organizations under the supervision of the Engineering Student Life office. These organizations offer a wide variety of student groups that provide academic, professional development, service and social opportunities. The majority are student chapters of national and international professional engineering organizations. Among the organizations are: [24]
The University of Texas at Austin is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 52,384 students as of Fall 2022, it is also the largest institution in the system.
Texas Student Media (TSM) is an auxiliary enterprise of the University of Texas at Austin (UT) and the largest student media operation in the United States. It is composed of faculty, student, and professional news industry representatives.
John Tinsley Oden was an American engineer. He was the Associate Vice President for Research, the Cockrell Family Regents' Chair in Engineering #2, the Peter O'Donnell, Jr. Centennial Chair in Computing Systems, a Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, a Professor of Mathematics, and a Professor of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin. Oden has been listed as an ISI Highly Cited Author in Engineering by the ISI Web of Knowledge, Thomson Scientific Company.
The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture (UTSOA) is a college within The University of Texas at Austin, with its major facilities located on the main university campus in Austin, Texas, United States.
Ben G. Streetman is the former dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Texas in 1966, and became a professor there in 1982. He founded the university's Microelectronics Research Center and holds the Dula D. Cockrell Centennial Chair Emeritus in Engineering. Streetman is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Electrochemical Society. He was awarded the IEEE Education Medal in 1989.
Alan Conrad Bovik is an American engineer, vision scientist, and educator. He is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin), where he holds the Cockrell Family Regents Endowed Chair in the Cockrell School of Engineering and is Director of the Laboratory for Image and Video Engineering (LIVE). He is a faculty member in the UT-Austin Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Machine Learning Laboratory, the Institute for Neuroscience, and the Wireless Networking and Communications Group.
The College of Engineering at Michigan State University (MSU) is made up of 9 departments with 168 faculty members, over 6,000 undergraduate students, 10 undergraduate B.S. degree programs and a wide spectrum of graduate programs in both M.S. and Ph.D. levels. Each department offers at least one degree program, however many include more than one degree, multi-disciplinary programs, certifications and specialties as well as other degree programs affiliated with other colleges at Michigan State University.
The Center for Transportation Research (CTR) is a research center affiliated with the Cockrell School of Engineering's Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas. CTR is a research institution focused on transportation research and education.
Surya Santoso is an associate professor of Electrical Engineering at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and directs the Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Electric Power & Integration of Renewable Energy Systems (L-ASPIRES). A senior member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), he is actively involved in the IEEE Power and Energy Society and has hosted the IEEE Plain Talk on Power Quality in IEEE Power and Energy General Meeting since 2010.
Frank Harrison Jr. was an American physician, professor and university administrator.
Theodore (Ted) Scott Rappaport is an American electrical engineer and the David Lee/Ernst Weber Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at New York University Tandon School of Engineering and founding director of NYU WIRELESS.
Charles A. Sorber was an American civil engineer, engineering professor, and academic administrator He was born in 1939 in Kingston, Pennsylvania, US. He received a bachelor's of science degree in civil engineering in 1961 and a master's of science degree in civil engineering in 1966 at Pennsylvania State University, and a Ph.D. degree in environmental engineering in 1971 at the University of Texas at Austin. During his lifetime Dr. Sorber served in the U.S. Army and in a number of academic, research, and administrative positions in the United States.
Sanjay Banerjee is an American engineer at the University of Texas at Austin, director of Microelectronics Research Center, and director of the Southwest Academy of Nanoelectronics (SWAN) — one of three such centers in the United States funded by the Semiconductor Research Corporation to develop a replacement for MOSFETs as part of their Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI).
Don Fussell is an American computer scientist, currently the Trammell Crow Regents Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and the chairman of its computer science department.
T. R. Viswanathan is an American engineer, who is currently the Silicon Laboratories Endowed Chair in Electrical Engineering at the Cockrell School of Engineering, University of Texas at Austin. He is formerly the Dean of the Indian Institute of Technology.
Ahmed H. Tewfik is an Egyptian-American electrical engineer, professor and college administrator who currently serves as the IEEE Signal Processing Society President. He also holds the Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering #1 at UT Austin. He served as the former chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin from 2010 to 2019. For his research and contributions to the field of Signal Processing he was elected as an IEEE Fellow in 1996, received the IEEE Third Millennium Award in 2000, and awarded the 2017 IEEE Signal Processing Society Technical Achievement Award.
Deji Akinwande is a Nigerian-American professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering with courtesy affiliation with Materials Science at the University of Texas at Austin. He was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2016 from Barack Obama. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the African Academy of Sciences, the Materials Research Society (MRS), and the IEEE.
Maruthi Ram Akella is an Indian-American aerospace engineer. Akella specializes in the control of complex dynamical systems that are subject to large scale nonlinearities and uncertainties.
Xiuling Li is a distinguished electrical and computer engineering professor in the field of nanostructured semiconductor devices. She is currently the Temple Foundation Endowed Professorship No. 3 in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Fellow of the Dow Professor in Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously, she was a Donald Biggar Willet Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Interim Director of the Nick Holonyak Jr. Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.