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Why Cornell Engineering?
"Scientists study the world as it is; engineers create the world that never has been."—Theodore von Karman
Cornell engineers challenge the status quo and do great things. Steeped in an environment of questioning, and with a focus on innovation, Cornell Engineering pursues excellence in all areas. Its faculty, students, and alumni design, build, and test products, improve the world of medicine, inform and shape our laws, create and drive businesses, become research luminaries, and overcome real and perceived barriers to achieve scientific breakthroughs that advance the quality of life on our planet.
We invite you to learn more about Cornell Engineering and its programs.
Did you know?
Cornell alums, Eric Betzig and William E. Moerner, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 for their groundbreaking achievements in optical microscopy where the pathways of individual molecules can be imaged inside living cells.
In 2014, Prof. Michael King and his team unveiled a new method for killing metastatic cancer cells directly in the bloodstream. Almost 90 percent of all cancer deaths are caused by metastases and this new method could prove a valuable weapon in the fight against cancer.
First retractable landing gear for military planes was developed in 1932 by Leroy Grumman, (Mechanical Engineering, 1916). Designed at the request of the US Navy to replace hand-cranked landing gearing, it was first installed on the Grumman FF-1 biplane fighter.
In 1933 Ralph Mosser Barnes was awarded the first PhD worldwide in Industrial Engineering for his dissertation “Practical and Theoretical Aspects of Micromotion Study” . It was retooled into the 1937 text, Motion and Time: Design and Measurement in Work, that sold 300,000 copies:, forming a quantitative basis for analyzing the industrial production process, including such applications as movements required for typing and the commercial folding of napkins .
CDMA (Code Division and Multiple Access) technology for cell phones was developed in 1989 by alum Irwin Jacobs , co-founder and former chairman of Qualcomm. This innovation greatly increased the number of calls cell phone towers could handle simultaneously and became the world’s fastest-growing and most advanced voice and data wireless communications technology.