Engineering in SESE

Engineering in SESE

Currently there are three professors in SESE who were hired to conduct engineering-based research. However, there are also a few faculty in the school who are actively interested in instrumentation. Someday soon, however, there may be many more engineering researchers, as SESE's culture emphasizes the integration of engineering research with scientific research. There are just as few graduate students in SESE studying engineering as well. This is mostly due to the relatively unestablished nature of engineering within SESE.

Currently, you can only pursue the engineering research under the Astrophysics or Geology Masters/Ph.D. but rumor is that a third graduate degree of Systems Engineering may come in the future. Regardless of which department you may belong, you have the opportunity to take any class you wish, including graduate classes within the Fulton School of Engineering. You should work with your advisor to discuss courses that would be relevant to your specialized area of research.

While there may be only a couple grad students doing engineering work in the department, it's not for a lack of opportunity or exciting research. The engineering research in this department is extremely trans-disciplinary, which means that the engineering faculty and students can branch out into any of the broad research areas covered by SESE, which gives the graduate student the opportunity to explore a wide range of field and pursue almost any aspect of research. This may be a bit scary for someone who doesn't know what they are interested in and wants someone to show them their academic path from Day One to graduation. However, I think the ability to explore and determine exactly what you want to study and take whatever classes you want to get you there is really exciting. Secondly, there are so many avenues of unexplored research that there are ample opportunities for you to develop original research with real application!

This author has found that the scientists within SESE are extremely eager to work with engineers on different projects, especially those projects which may lead to new instrumentation to further advance their scientific study.