Engineers play an important role in modern society. They design and develop new and improved materials, products, and processes ranging from nanoparticles to antibiotics to major bridges and dams. Engineers are in demand across a broad spectrum of industries, spanning traditional fields such as mechanical and electrical engineering to the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and medicine. Engineers not only satisfy society's demand for improved performance, reliability, and safety of products, but they also supply solutions for unforeseen societal consequences that may arise as the result of new technologies.

The College of Engineering has six academic departments: the Roy J. Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering, and the departments of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Industrial and Systems Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering.

Moreover, research and educational activities of the college are supported by four research centers and institutes: the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, the Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging, IIHR—Hydroscience and Engineering, and the Iowa Technology Institute.

Undergraduate Programs of Study

The College of Engineering offers the Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) with majors in biomedical, chemical, civil, computer science and engineering, electrical, environmental, industrial, and mechanical engineering. For information about each BSE major, see the College of Engineering department sections in the catalog.

The college also offers combined undergraduate degree programs with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Tippie College of Business; a dual degree with the University of Northern Iowa; a combined BSE/master's degree program in each engineering discipline; and combined BSE/master's degrees with the Department of Computer Science, the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, and the School of Planning and Public Affairs (also see the graduate Certificate in Transportation Planning in the Graduate College). For additional information, see "Combined and Dual Degrees" in the Bachelor of Science in Engineering, BSE section of the catalog.

In addition, the College of Engineering offers a Certificate in Applied Climate Science and Energy Technologies, the undergraduate Certificate in Artificial Intelligence, Modeling and Simulation in Engineering, a Certificate in Naval Science and Technology, and partners with the Tippie College of Business to offer a Certificate in Technological Entrepreneurship for undergraduate engineering students.

Graduate Programs of Study

The College of Engineering offers graduate degree programs, the Master of Science (MS) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), in biomedical engineering, chemical and biochemical engineering, civil and environmental engineering, electrical and computer engineering, industrial engineering, and mechanical engineering. See the College of Engineering Graduate Studies website for an overview, and the department sections in the catalog for information about specific areas of research and study, admission and degree requirements, and financial support for the graduate programs. The College of Engineering also offers the graduate Certificate in Artificial Intelligence, Modeling and Simulation in Engineering, and a graduate Certificate in Sustainable Water Development.

College of Engineering Facilities

Seamans Center for the Engineering Arts and Sciences

The Seamans Center for the Engineering Arts and Sciences is home to the College of Engineering. In addition to classrooms, conference rooms, instructional laboratories, and faculty offices, the Seamans Center houses the Lichtenberger Engineering Library, the Hanson Center for Technical Communication, a machine shop, an electronic shop, student workspaces, computational facilities, and research laboratories. A number of classrooms and open spaces located throughout the building were designed to readily accommodate collaborative work.

Engineering Student Services

The professional staff of Engineering Student Services administer student services for the College of Engineering, including advising, tutoring, student records, and global engineering. It also is the administrative home of Engineering Career Services and the Hanson Center for Technical Communication.

Engineering Career Services

Engineering Career Services develops and promotes experiential education and professional opportunities for students in the College of Engineering. Professional staff coordinate the college's co-op and internship program, engage in employer outreach, and provide opportunities for students to network with employers, including engineering career fairs and other programming related to career development.

Engineering Career Services offers individual advising and class presentations on résumé and cover letter preparation, job and internship search strategies, interviewing skills, job offer evaluation, and much more. Engineering Career Services partners with the Pomerantz Career Center to facilitate on-campus interviewing, postgraduation outcome collection, and the university's online recruiting system, Handshake.

Leadership, Ethics, and Professional Pathways (LEaPP)

The LEaPP Academy aims to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and perspectives that will enhance their long-term success, make them valuable leaders to the companies that employ them, and develop them as ethically and globally aware citizens of the world. LEaPP Scholars will complete a number of cocurricular activities to earn leadership, ethical thinking, and professional development credentials. Individuals who complete the LEaPP Academy will receive collegiate accolades and be honored with graduation cords specific to the LEaPP Program. The LEaPP Academy is designed to be accessible no matter the semester or timeline in which a student joins; each piece is individualized and self-led to offer the best experience to each student based on their needs.

Hanson Center for Communication

The Hanson Center for Communication is an endowed program that works closely with engineering faculty to train students in verbal and written communication throughout the curriculum. The center helps create, manage, and grade writing and presentation assignments and provides training to students, tutors, and faculty on best practices for communication. In addition, the Hanson Center for Communication is home to an innovative peer training center that conducts hundreds of one-on-one and team tutoring sessions each year. The center helps review lab reports, topical papers, technical essays, and technical presentations each semester. Peer tutors are undergraduate students who have shown exceptional promise as communicators and provide individualized feedback throughout the writing and presentation process. In addressing global concerns (organization, clarity, and context), peer tutors help their fellow students transform rough drafts into persuasive, logical documents and presentations.

Global Engineering

Many of today’s top employers are seeking engineering graduates with global experiences and competencies who can effectively interact with colleagues and customers around the world. Successful engineers are able to communicate across cultures, work on diverse teams, and productively deal with issues and conflicts arising from differences.

University of Iowa engineering students have a variety of opportunities to study, pursue internships, or conduct research abroad. Students can enroll in credit-bearing courses in English to fulfill engineering or general education requirements or earn credits toward a minor in another discipline or world language. In addition to completing coursework abroad, engineering students can pursue experiential opportunities abroad, including global internships, conducting independent research in other countries, and volunteering. For more information, see Global Engineering on the College of Engineering website. The College of Engineering and International Programs supports these endeavors by offering students a variety of scholarships and funding.

Engineering Computer Services

Engineering Computer Services (ECS) provides spaces and technology administration for curricular, administrative, and research computing at the College of Engineering. The college has three drop-in computer labs with 225 high-end Linux and Windows computer workstations with graphics processing unit (GPU) support, a 24-seat computer classroom, a 45-seat machine learning and virtual reality-capable computer classroom, and a 400-seat virtual computer lab with GPU support that students can access from the internet. Numerous public domain and commercial engineering applications support the full range of engineering classes. Software is regularly upgraded, and hardware is refreshed at least every four years. The college's computer labs are open 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

Engineering Electronics Shop

The Engineering Electronics Shop (EES) is a full-service electronics facility that supports sales and service for the College of Engineering and the university. EES provides design, construction, repair, calibration, and preventive maintenance services for teaching and research laboratories. The shop maintains more than 10,000 parts in stock, including electronic components, computer and office supplies, and lockers for rent. The shop has laser cutting/etching equipment, 3D printers, and a poster-plotting service.

Engineering Machine Shop

The Engineering Machine Shop (EMS) is a full-service, light manufacturing facility that supports the curricular, research, and operational needs of the College of Engineering and the university. EMS provides professional design and fabrication services and gives students, staff, and faculty controlled access to a student shop that contains a variety of manufacturing equipment. The shop has a high-resolution 3D scanner, commercial 3D printers, a waterjet, a full wood shop, welding, and multi-axis CNC machines.

Lichtenberger Engineering Library

The Lichtenberger Engineering Library is a branch of the University of Iowa Main Library and is a center of engineering college activity. Its collection includes books (including required course textbooks), tools, equipment, and electronic resources to assist at any stage of research on projects both big and small. Staff are trained to help locate information and provide training on a wide variety of skills, including patent searching, data management, tool usage, and more.

The Engineering Library, located next to the Student Commons in the Seamans Center, provides access to computer workstations, quiet study in the lower level, and group study space where students may reserve a private room for their work. The Engineering Library also houses the Creative Space, a space for students to imagine, tinker, design, and create with virtual reality, 3D scanners, and more.

NEXUS

The NEXUS Program is an art and engineering program. NEXUS promotes collaboration efforts between the College of Engineering and the art community by getting people and ideas together. The goal is to involve students in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) projects throughout the university and the surrounding community. The program helps participants to think outside the box.

College of Engineering Research Centers

Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology

The Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CBCB) is a multidisciplinary research center dedicated to applying high performance networking and computing to basic life science and applied biomedical research. With faculty and students representing more than 20 traditional disciplines, the CBCB has contributed to the understanding of inherited human diseases, including blinding eye disease, cancer, deafness, diabetes, autism, schizophrenia, hypertension, obesity, and heart disease. For almost 20 years, the CBCB has been at the cutting edge of high-throughput molecular discovery and interpretation in transcriptomics, genomics, and proteomics. At the confluence of these efforts lies the current wavefront of personalized genomic medicine, in which the CBCB plays a central role in partnership with labs, centers, and institutes across the university's Carver College of Medicine and basic science programs across campus. The CBCB also has been a center for industry start-ups and partnerships with numerous commercial enterprises. The center is jointly sponsored by the College of Engineering and the Carver College of Medicine.

Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging

The Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging conducts research in the following areas: medical imaging (CT, MR, OCT, PET, SPECT, ultrasound, multimodality imaging), medical image analysis and computer-aided diagnosis; cardiovascular image analysis (angiography-intravascular ultrasound data fusion, MR image analysis of congenital heart disease, coronary CT image analysis, early detection of cardiovascular disease); pulmonary image analysis (CT and MR image analysis of the lung); cell image analysis (cell tracking, shape analysis); virtual surgery planning (augmented reality for surgical planning); cancer-related assessment of tumor progression/regression; staging; general machine learning; and disease/treatment outcome prediction. The institute is sponsored by the College of Engineering and the Carver College of Medicine.

IIHR—Hydroscience and Engineering

IIHR—Hydroscience and Engineering is a world-renowned center with more than 100 years of education, research, and public service focusing on hydraulic engineering and fluid mechanics. Based in the C. Maxwell Stanley Hydraulics Laboratory, a five-story red brick building on the banks of the Iowa River, IIHR is a unit of the College of Engineering. IIHR students, faculty members, research engineers and scientists, and staff work together to understand and manage one of the world’s greatest resources—water. Students from around the world benefit from IIHR’s comprehensive multidisciplinary approach, which includes basic fluid mechanics, laboratory experimentation, and computational approaches.

IIHR research activities include fluid dynamics (turbulent flows, vortex dynamics, ship hydrodynamics, biological fluid flow, atmospheric boundary layer, experimental and computational fluid dynamics); environmental hydraulics (river mechanics, hydraulic structures, fish passage, sediment management, heat disposal in water bodies and power productions, bioremediation of groundwater, computational hydraulics, water-quality monitoring); water and air resources (air pollution, hydroclimatology, hydrogeology, hydrology, hydrometeorology, remote sensing, water resources and basin-scale processes); environmental engineering and science (PCBs in the air and water, innovative ways of removing contaminants from the soil and water, ultra-fine particles of pollutants in the atmosphere, bioremediation strategies for persistent groundwater contaminants); and water sustainability (development of sound strategies and technological solutions to meet the challenges facing society's growing need for water resources). In 2009, the Iowa Flood Center was founded at IIHR as the only academic center devoted solely to flood-related research and education.

The University of Iowa’s Water Sustainability Initiative (WSI) brought new interdisciplinary expertise to the institute in 2013 when WSI faculty members (based in the colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and Public Health) became affiliated with IIHR. The Iowa Geological Survey joined IIHR in 2014, bringing new expertise in Iowa's subsurface resources, groundwater modeling, innovative geophysical skills, and more.

Students gain hands-on experience through close cooperation with faculty and staff on research projects funded by industry, government, and other organizations.

Iowa Technology Institute

The Iowa Technology Institute (ITI) conducts basic and applied research. The mission is to cultivate collaboration across disciplines, invent advanced technologies, and conduct trailblazing research in design, simulation, and experimentation that enables a safer and more productive future. ITI provides a unique environment for research and development for faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, research fellows, and professional scientists. ITI spans more than 20 laboratories and centers, led by the Operator Performance Laboratory, the Virtual Soldier Research program, and the Atmospheric and Environmental Research Lab.

Research at ITI focuses on advanced manufacturing and materials, human modeling and simulation, aerospace technology, biotechnology, environment and energy, and systems and sensors. Scientists conduct experiments in flight testing, human performance, robotics, biomedical and biochemical research, machine learning, smart sensors, remote sensing, renewable energy, and modeling of environmental change.

ITI has a satellite office in Orlando, Florida, and has major contracts with the U.S. military and industry partners.

High School Program

FIRST Tech Challenge

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) gives students the opportunity for real-world application of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts. Students participate in an atmosphere that encourages team building, entrepreneurship, and sportsmanship. FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) allows teams of students to be responsible for designing, building, and programming robots to compete in an alliance format against other teams. Teams are required to develop strategies and build robots based on sound engineering principles. Students learn about working in a team environment, effective communication skills, the ability to fail and succeed at the same time, and competing fairly while being supportive of their competition.

The engineering course requirements for engineering majors are outlined in their respective catalog sections. Each undergraduate program builds upon a core program; see the Bachelor of Science in Engineering in the catalog. Not all engineering core courses listed are required for each engineering major. Core program courses are intended for College of Engineering students. Undergraduate students in other disciplines who wish to register for core engineering courses should complete a special permission form.

• Engineering Courses
• Engineering and Information Technology Courses

Engineering Courses

Engineering and Information Technology Courses