UVA Engineering Degree Programs

The last 30 years have witnessed an explosion in our knowledge of the human body and our ability to treat disease. Undergraduates who choose Biomedical Engineering as a major have the opportunity to work side by side with faculty who have made important contributions to this knowledge creation. Using our perspective as biomedical engineers, we are making groundbreaking discoveries in fields like systems biology and biomedical data sciences, medical imaging and cellular and tissue engineering.

The Department of Chemical Engineering is developing solutions to some of society's most pressing challenges in areas like renewable energy and water purification, while pursuing exciting opportunities in biotechnology and biomolecular engineering that can improve medical treatments and save lives. When you decide to major in Chemical Engineering at UVA, you join a group of students who are both high performing and mutually supportive, giving you a perfect environment to grow and develop.

Shelter, transportation, clean water. With a dual focus on infrastructure and the environment, the civil engineering program develops new approaches and new technologies to better develop, monitor, maintain, and manage the essential building blocks of society. Through this work, our students and faculty make international contributions to a more sustainable future. In the process, we advance the limits of current technology, whether it’s cyber-physical systems for smart cities or nanotechnology for low-cost water purification. To ensure our solutions are fully responsive to community needs, we actively collaborate across disciplines, including public policy, business, public health and architecture.

A student in Computer Engineering can choose to study with any faculty in the departments of Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering. The program allows faculty from both departments to collaborate with one another and to co-advise students in areas which cross traditional curricular lines. Computer engineers design, program, produce, operate, and maintain computer and digital systems. They generally apply the theories and principles of science and mathematics to the design of hardware, software, networks, and processes to solve technical problems. Areas of research include Energy, Medical, Networks, and Security.

With its significant strengths in the three core areas of computer science—computer systems, theory and artificial intelligence—the Computer Science Department provides its students with intensive, hands-on experiences applying fundamental computer science concepts in the real world. The process is reinforced by presenting technical education in the context of important societal issues, with an emphasis on communication skills.

Whether they see themselves designing chips for the Internet of Things or engineering next-generation photovoltaic cells, Electrical Engineering undergraduates leave UVA ready to drive the future of technology in industry or in graduate school. Starting with fundamentals courses, students learn the elements of electrical engineering not as an abstraction but as an integrated system of tools that can be applied to specific, real-world applications. Students have ample hands-on studio courses, research opportunities and projects.

Students who major in Engineering Science, administered by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, like the freedom to chart their own course. Engineering Science is an interdisciplinary degree program, which means students can create their own program that matches their interests or career goals by combining a minor in one engineering discipline with a minor in mathematics, science or another engineering discipline.

The MSE major offers students an in-depth study of the field of materials science and engineering and prepares students for careers in research, development and manufacturing.
 

We make a point of grounding our students in the fundamentals of mechanical and aerospace engineering. This positions them to make the most of the freedom and independence that is the essence of the fourth-year capstone project. Students can choose to focus on topics like aircraft design, rotating machinery, or computational methods, but the specific direction they take is theirs to choose, and many students earn national awards for their work.

The Systems & Information Engineering program places graduates squarely at the center of the data revolution. It equips them with technical skills in areas like data science, visualization, optimization and business analytics that are critical to decision-making, as well as the leadership and communication skills to direct efforts to design and improve large-scale systems. Through class projects, internships and fourth-year capstone projects, our students gain real-world, team-based experience in such areas as cloud computing, machine learning and unmanned aerial systems.

UVA Engineering's Biomedical Engineering Department is distinguished by its emphasis on biology and its close relationship with UVA’s School of Medicine. Our dual perspective has enabled our faculty members and students to make groundbreaking discoveries in systems biology and biomedical data science, medical imaging, and cellular and tissue engineering. Through partnerships with major corporations and startups, they are actively applying these breakthroughs to advance human health.

Drawing on expertise in areas like catalysis, electrochemical systems, transport properties of biological systems and polymers for membranes and biomaterials, the Chemical Engineering Department's faculty bridge time and length scales between molecular-level interactions and real-world application. Using advanced molecular engineering strategies, the departments faculty and students are driving innovation in fields as varied and as important to society as solar energy and battery technologies, natural gas to chemical conversions, water purification, pollutant remediation tissue engineering, and pharmaceutical processing and drug delivery.

Whether the challenge is more efficient transportation, rising sea levels, modernizing the built environment or clean water, our students, staff and faculty create resilient systems that meet the needs of our communities. In the process, we advance the limits of current technology, whether it’s cyber-physical systems for smart cities or nanotechnology for low-cost water purification. To ensure our solutions are fully responsive to community needs, we actively collaborate across disciplines, including public policy, business, public health and architecture.

A student in Computer Engineering can choose to study with any faculty in the Departments of Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering. The program allows faculty from both departments to collaborate with one another and to co-advise students in areas that cross traditional curricular lines. Computer engineers design, program, produce, operate and maintain computer and digital systems. They generally apply the theories and principles of science and mathematics to the design of hardware, software, networks and processes to solve technical problems. Areas of research include energy, medical, networks and security.

With its significant strengths in the three core areas of computer science—computer systems, theory and artificial intelligence—the Computer Science Department fosters highly productive collaborations that have led to breakthroughs in cyber-physical systems, cybersecurity, machine learning and high-performance computing among other areas. The department is applying these discoveries to address some of the most critical society challenges of the 21st century, in fields such as healthcare, neuroscience and sustainability.

Students in this program benefit from a highly collaborative culture as well as faculty's core strengths in areas like terahertz and photonic devices, low-power digital systems, signal and image processing, and advanced controls. Thanks to our extensive partnerships with researchers around the University and the world, we are at the forefront of innovation in such emerging fields as cyber-physical systems and multifunctional materials integration as well as neuroscience, smart and connected health, and medical imaging.

Students and faculty work across disciplines to address complex societal challenges, from more efficient jet engines to new electronic materials that extend the limits of Moore's law. With recent faculty hires, the department has reinforced its expertise in corrosion, high-temperature materials, surfaces and interface science, electronic materials and computational materials science. And the department is firmly established in such emerging fields as two-dimensional materials, soft and/or biological materials, and functional thermal material systems.

This department brings together world-class expertise in energy, propulsion, autonomous systems, biomechanics and manufacturing. This cross-cutting environment and new partnerships have resulted in levels of student awards, publications and research funding that place us among the nation’s elite mechanical and aerospace engineering programs. We are equipping a generation of leaders to apply mechanical and aerospace engineering to solve society's challenges.

Systems Engineering at UVA pushes the boundaries of knowledge in three core areas—human interaction, optimization and secure control, and information modeling—to improve performance across the range of human activity. Newly developed approaches have produced advances in domains as varied as aviation safety, juvenile diabetes, manufacturing, precision medicine and surgery. Through all our work, we seek to benefit society by fostering safety, efficiency and sound decision-making.

UVA Engineering offers two programs for working professionals looking to earn their master's degrees: the Accelerated Master's Program in Systems Engineering and Virginia Engineering Online (Online Professional Master's Degree Program).