The Drexel University College of Engineering is the university's flagship college, founded in 1891 by banker A.J. Drexel to prepare his hometown Philadelphians to participate in opportunities provided by the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

. The college has six departments, 11 undergraduate programs/majors, and 17 graduate degree programs at its main campus in the University City section of

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, one block from

30th Street Station 30th Street Station, officially William H. Gray III 30th Street Station, is a major intermodal passenger transport, intermodal transit station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The station opened in 1933 as Pennsylvania Station– ...

. The college is listed in the '' U.S. News & World Report'' 2023-24 rankings as #54 for Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs and #97 in Best Engineering Schools (graduate). Drexel was cited by ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' magazine as one of the top 25 STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) schools in the country. The Material Science and Engineering depart was ranked #29 for Global Universities in 2023 by U.S. News & World Report.

History

The Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry was founded in 1891 with a $3 million investment by banker Anthony J. Drexel, who played a major role in the rise of modern global finance after the American Civil War. Drexel foresaw the need for an institution with an emphasis on science and technology that would advance the common ideals of a just and diverse society by providing open access to higher education. Drexel offered a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree beginning in 1914. In 1943, the first women enrolled in the School of Engineering and in 1945 the school became the College of Engineering. The first graduate degrees were conferred in 1952.

Academics

Drexel's College of Engineering offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in six academic departments: *Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering *Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering *Department of

Electrical and Computer Engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

*Department of Engineering Leadership and Society (includes

Engineering Technology An engineering technologist is a professional trained in certain aspects of development and implementation of a respective area of technology. An education in engineering technology concentrates more on application and less on theory than ...

and

Engineering Management Engineering management is the application of engineering methods, tools, and techniques to business management systems. Engineering management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving ability of engineering and the organi ...

) *Department of

Materials Science and Engineering Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials scien ...

*Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics There are also several institutes and centers: *A.J. Drexel Institute of Energy and the Environment *A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute *C. & J. Nyheim Plasma Institute *Center for Electric Power Engineering *Centralized Research Facilities *Expressive and Creative Interaction Technologies *Materials Center of Excellence The college has one of the nation's oldest

cooperative education Cooperative education (or co-operative education) is a structured method of combining classroom-based education with practical work experience. A cooperative education experience, commonly known as a "co-op" or work-study program, provides a ...

programs, established in 1919. Under the program, students alternate study with six-month cycles of full-time, professional employment both within and without the university, and at institutes and universities abroad. Up to 99% of undergraduates in the college participate in the co-op program.

Research

The

Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, or simply the Carnegie Classification, is a framework for classifying colleges and universities in the United States. It was created in 1970 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Ad ...

classifies Drexel University as "R1: Doctoral Universities – Highest research activity," the highest category which includes just 37 private institutions. General research areas at the College of Engineering include advanced manufacturing, cyber and physical infrastructure, health and medicine, automation, computation, engineering education, materials, and systems engineering. Translational and novel research is supported by grants and funding from extra-University sources such as the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

, the

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...

, the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

, the

Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...

, and the

Army Research Laboratory The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory (DEVCOM ARL) is the foundational research laboratory for the United States Army under the United States Army Futures Command (AFC). DEVCOM ARL conducts intramural an ...

. Research expenditures for the college in 2018 were $20,081,937. In 2017, Drexel University was ranked 54th (tie) in the Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted US Utility Patents by the

National Academy of Inventors The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) is a US non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging inventors in academia, following the model of the National Academies of the United States. It was founded at the University of South Florida in 201 ...

Notable alumni

Alumni from the college of engineering include astronauts

Christopher Ferguson Christopher J. "Fergy" Ferguson (born September 1, 1961) is a Boeing commercial astronaut and a retired United States Navy captain and NASA astronaut. He was the pilot of Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'' on his first mission to space, STS-115, which l ...

and Paul W. Richards, inventor of network

packet switching In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping Data (computing), data into short messages in fixed format, i.e. ''network packet, packets,'' that are transmitted over a digital Telecommunications network, network. Packets consi ...

Paul Baran Paul Baran (born Pesach Baran ; April 29, 1926 – March 26, 2011) was a Polish-American engineer who was a pioneer in the development of computer networks. He was one of the two independent inventors of packet switching, which is today the do ...

, developers of

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, Machine-readable data, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly ref ...

technology

Bernard Silver Bernard Silver (September 21, 1924 – August 28, 1963) was an electrical engineer and early developer of barcode technology alongside Norman Joseph Woodland. Silver earned his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Drexel Institu ...

and

Norman Joseph Woodland Norman Joseph Woodland (September 6, 1921 – December 9, 2012) was an American inventor and engineer, best known as one of the inventors of the barcode, for which he received a patent in October 1952. Later, employed by IBM, he developed the fo ...

, professor Eli Fromm, AI researcher and podcast host

Lex Fridman Alexei "Lex" Fridman (; born 15 August 1983) is an American computer scientist and podcaster. Since 2018, he has hosted the ''Lex Fridman Podcast'', where he interviews notable figures from various fields such as science, technology, sports, and ...

, financier Bennett S. LeBow, and engineer David H. Geiger.

References and sources

External links

* {{Coord, 39.95411, -75.18673, type:edu_globe:earth_region:US-PA, display=title Drexel University Engineering universities and colleges in Pennsylvania Universities and colleges established in 1891 1891 establishments in Pennsylvania