A Look Back / A Look Forward
Farewell, 2007! Another exciting, busy year has passed with many accolades and accomplishments for the faculty and students in the College of Engineering. Change was evident within both the College and the schools as COE’s strategic plan continued to unfold.
With four objectives for the coming years, COE last year continued to develop innovative educational programs that integrate disciplines and that engage students in the excitement of learning. COE degree programs encourage flexibility and interdisciplinary interests in planning a student’s program of study. COE currently has more than 60 interdisciplinary centers including four national Centers of Excellence and was ranked 5th in top engineering undergraduate programs and 4th in top engineering graduate programs by U.S. News and World Report.
For a more detailed list of 2007 COE
accomplishments by our faculty and
students click here.
The College of Engineering continued to recruit, develop and retain a diverse faculty, staff and student body committed to excellence. In support of this effort, ExxonMobil Foundation made a $1 million commitment to the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering to fund the ExxonMobil Georgia Tech–Spelman College Program in ChBE. The commitment to excellence is reflected in the average SAT score 1358 for entering engineering freshman. COE also ranked first in the country in the number of bachelor’s degrees to women and first in the number of graduate degrees awarded to African Americans. Georgia Tech has 25 National Academy of Engineering members in the faculty, 31 NSF CAREER Award recipients, and 18 NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award recipients.
COE’s strategic plan provides for the infrastructure, incentives and a reward system to support the discovery-to-application visions of our faculty. For seven years, Georgia Tech has been the top public institution in engineering research and development.
The Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics (CFM) Research
Group at Georgia Tech, led by Dr. Ajit Yoganathan, top
right. (View larger)
Highlights this past year include Eva K. Lee, ISyE, as part of a research team, was awarded more than $31 million dollars over a five year period by Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA), a consortium funded by the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), to focus on accelerating the translation of laboratory discoveries into healthcare innovations for patients. Dan Tedder, ChBE, disclosed two inventions for recovering fuel-grade ethanol from fermentation beers. Ajit Yoganathan, BME, and his research group, developed a technology that predicts the outcome of child heart surgery, known as image-based surgical planning that will help pediatric cardiac surgeons design and test a customized surgical procedure before they ever pick up a scalpel.
Using our areas of excellence and interdisciplinary culture to invest in research and educational programs involving issues of global significance, initiatives such as the BME and Peking University joint graduate program, and ECE’s and ISyE’s fellowship programs with Shanghai Jiao Tong University moved forward. In addition, ECE is exploring the possibility of establishing a Georgia Tech India presence with campuses in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam.
Going into 2008, the College of Engineering is preparing for its accreditation visit by ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology). Sixteen undergraduate COE programs in Atlanta and Savannah will be evaluated in the fall of 2008. The School of Mechanical Engineering has a new chair and the search for a new chair of Aerospace Engineering has begun. Focus continues on interdisciplinary programs as evidenced by the newly created Ph.D. degree in computational science and engineering as well as the nation’s first interdisciplinary doctoral degree in robotics. COE’s international efforts will continue to be at the forefront as new agreements in China and other countries extend engineering educational opportunities.
Strategic research initiatives continue to go forward in energy, security, healthcare, and environment. Just recently ME researchers announced a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant from finding its way from a car tailpipe into the atmosphere. As called for in the COE strategic plan, focus will continue in 2008 to recruit and retain women and under-represented minority faculty and students. The College will continue to develop innovative, experiential educational programs as we prepare our students to be “Engineers of 2020.”