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Columbia University, Mechanical Engineering Department

Mechanical Engineering at Columbia

 

The Mechanical Engineering Department at Columbia was established in 1897. It has enjoyed a national and international reputation for much of its history. Between 1950 and 1980, professors Dudley D. Fuller, Harold G. Elrod, and Vittorio Castelli were the foremost leaders in the field of lubrication theory and practice. In the 1960s, Professor Ferdinand Freudenstein (known as the "Father of Modern Kinematics"), revolutionized the field of mechanical design by ushering in the computer age in kinematics synthesis and the design of mechanism. In more recent times, the department has been known for its research contributions in the fields of control theory, manufacturing, thermofluids, and biomechanics. Faculty members have given keynote lectures in national and international conferences and received best-paper awards and professional-society awards. All faculty members are active in research with many serving as editors and associate editors of professional journals and as leaders in professional societies.

We are a small department with an undergraduate student-faculty ratio of less than 10 to 1 and a graduate ratio of about 7 to 1. This allows our students to participate actively in the learning process and provides opportunities for involvement in design competitions, projects, and research. The mechanical-engineering program at Columbia University is designed to allow students to take advantage of the unique and outstanding liberal-arts education provided by Columbia College. An undergraduate has 27 points of nontechnical requirements and many of our faculty members have received teaching awards.

The undergraduate laboratories occupy an area of approximately 6,000 square feet of floor space and are the site of experiments ranging from basic instrumentation and fundamental exercises to more advanced experiments using its state-of-the-art equipment. The Computer-Aided Design Lab has software tools for design, CAD, FEM, and CFD. The Mechatronics Laboratory has facilities for the construction and testing of analog and digital electronic circuits and gives students the opportunity for hands-on experience with microcomputer-embedded control of electromechanical systems.

Research facilities are located within individual or group research laboratories in the department, and these facilities are being continually upgraded. To view the current research activities, please visit the various laboratories within the research section of the department’s Web site. Through their participation in NSF-MRSEC, the faculty and students also have access to shared instrumentation and the Clean Room located in the Shapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Science Research. In recent years, new research laboratories have been added for nanotube science, optical nanostructures, nanomechanics, nonlinear and autonomous vehicle control, medical robotics, microscale transport phenomena, and microfluidics.


 

 

Oct 05, 2021
Full time
Open Rank Faculty - Autonomous Systems, Engineering and Medicine, and Sustainability
Columbia University, Mechanical Engineering Department Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
d   The Department of Mechanical Engineering welcomes applications for a faculty position at open rank. We are searching broadly in all areas of mechanical engineering, and encourage candidates with an interest in the school-wide initiatives that relate to autonomous systems, engineering and medicine, and sustainability. Areas of emphasis include, but are not limited to, autonomous and human integrative systems at the intersection of control, learning, and datadriven methods, with wide applicability in domains such as robotics, energy systems and sustainability, biomechanics, and more. Candidates must have a Ph.D. or its professional equivalent by the starting date of the appointment. Applicants for this position must demonstrate the potential to do pioneering research and to teach effectively. The Department is especially interested in candidates who can contribute, through their research, teaching, and/or service, to the excellence and diversity of the academic community.  
Oct 05, 2021
Full time
Postdoctoral Research Scientist
Columbia University, Mechanical Engineering Department Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
  The Quadracci Sustainable Engineering Lab (QSEL) works on solutions that could advance well-being and economic growth through both access to energy, water and infrastructure as well as creating and enabling income generating opportunities in emerging economies.  In recent years, we have been increasingly asked to help identify opportunities and binding constraints at granular scale using national-scale data of populations, land-use, economic activity and infrastructure to support the ability of private sector and governments to leverage opportunity and address constraints. The incumbent will be contributing to ‘Using Data to Catalyze Energy Investments’, a Columbia World Project. Responsibilities: To utilize a combination of field data, utility data, existing survey data, imagery from satellites and ground-based cameras to characterize and classify agricultural lands, especially for presence and/or proximity of surface and shallow groundwater...
Oct 05, 2021
Full time
Postdoctoral Research Scientist - Quadracci Sustainable Engineering Lab
Columbia University, Mechanical Engineering Department Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
  The Quadracci Sustainable Engineering Lab (QSEL) works on solutions that could advance well-being and economic growth through both access to energy, water and infrastructure as well as creating and enabling income generating opportunities in emerging economies. In recent years, we have increasingly been asked to help identify opportunities and binding constraints at granular scale using national-scale data of populations, land-use, economic activity and infrastructure to support the ability of private sector and governments to leverage opportunity and address constraints. The incumbent will be contributing to ‘Using Data to Catalyze Energy Investments’, a Columbia World Project. Responsibilities: The primary job responsibilities of this position are to: 1) implement deep learning models for identifying cropland, seasonal changes in vegetation, distinguish between horticulture and cereal crops and possible use of irrigation. Inform on value of...