Admissions
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?
Prof. Malcolm S. McIlroy created the Electric Analyzer for Fluid Distribution Systems. This device’s tungsten lamp lit up with varying degrees of intensity to indicate change in fluid pressure of municipal gas or water pipes. At Cornell, he continued the development of a nonlinear resistor and resulted in an analog computer that has been a significant contribution to the solution of fluid pipeline network problems.
In 2012, Prof. Alexander Gaeta and his team developed a “temporal cloak,” that could camouflaged a moment in time. This was achieved by interrupting a beam of light, passing some information through the gap, and then creating a process for stitching the original beam back together so that when it reaches its destination, there is no sign of the beam being interrupted.
The Kessler Fellows Program at Cornell Engineering was founded in 2009. This innovative and one-of-a-kind program combines an engineering degree with deep exposure to start-up culture making graduates uniquely prepared to apply to skills to new opportunities and industries.
In 1974, Prof. Jack Blakely and his MSE students were first in the world to synthesize a single layer of graphene (a very thin, nearly transparent sheet, one atom thick) and determine its structure. Their method is the same used today by industries to make meter-sized sheets of graphene.
Brenda Dietrich (ORIE PhD, 1986), is currently IBM Fellow and VP in IBM Research Divisions, has been a leader in persuading a wide range of businesses and industries to benefit from the use of Analystics/ “fact-based decision making”. She transformed IBM’s largely-academic research center into a highly successful consulting operation oriented towards the service industries. INFORMS, gained worldwide recognition for being the world’s foremost community of experts in Analytics under her leadership and the prevalence of “analytics” in business discussions nowadays is in no small part due to her.