Mechanical Engineering

Carnegie Mellon’s Department of Mechanical Engineering (MechE) continues to evolve, creating emerging technologies and tools to educate future generations and develop solutions to the field’s most significant challenges. The department prides itself on its multidisciplinary approach to hands-on, real-world problem-solving. With cutting-edge, nontraditional research areas, the department is defining the next generation of mechanical engineering. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are integrated into nearly every research area. From additive manufacturing and Softbotics to neuroscience and nanoengineering, MechE's faculty and students are making breakthrough discoveries in traditional MechE disciplines as well as non-traditional ones.

Innovate

Programs

Undergraduate

Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering

Master’s

Ph.D.

Welcome to MechE

MechE graduates go on to...

Work at companies like:

Amazon
Apple
Boston Consulting
Deloitte
Ford Motor Company
General Motors
Google
Huawei
Intel
Naval Nuclear Lab
Space X

Pursue graduate degrees or careers in academia at universities like:

Carnegie Mellon University
Columbia University
Dartmouth University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Pennsylvania
Stanford University
University of Southern California
Yale University

Research areas

Advanced manufacturing

Bioengineering

Computational engineering

Energy and environment

Machine learning and AI

Micro/nanoengineering

Product innovation

Robotics

News

Apr 8

Energy & Environment

Doctoral researchers shine in 3MT championship

College of Engineering students explained complex research and its importance in under three minutes in the annual Three Minute Thesis competition.

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded 52 projects $750 million to dramatically reduce the cost of clean hydrogen and reinforce American leadership in the growing hydrogen industry.

Litster sub-awardee on $50M of new DOE hydrogen projects

Mar 20

Advanced Manufacturing

These defects are not to be mistaken as scratches

Shrinkage porosity, a common defect in metal castings, has been identified in laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing.

Mar 19

Energy & Environment

Anticipating and reducing EV battery supply disruptions

A recent study analyzes the relationship between EV battery chemistry and supply chain vulnerability for four critical minerals across particular countries that are key contributors to production.

Mar 15

Health & Biomedicine

Safety first: DNA armor protects regenerative medicine

Using DNA origami, researchers in Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering have developed a synthetic cell armor to protect cells during the stress of clinical practice.

Mar 12

News & Events

Rethinking neck protection in hockey

Brynn Broaddus and 15 of her peers spent spring break developing advanced neck protection to improve hockey players’ safety on the ice in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Covestro.

Mar 5

News & Events

Managing the Unmanageable

New book by Jon Cagan and Peter Boatwright answers how to build and manage successful innovation teams, combining academic research with practical applications

Researchers fabricate the world’s smallest QR code that, invisible to the naked eye, encrypts information to only be visible by an infrared camera lens.

Micro mirage: the infrared information carrier

Feb 23

Advanced Manufacturing

AI accelerates process design for 3D printing metal alloys

Researchers use AI and high-speed in-situ imaging to optimize process parameters for 3D printing metal alloys.

Research paper

Feb 20

Advanced Manufacturing

New Robotics Innovation Center will anchor community outreach programs in Hazelwood

The new Robotics Innovation Center (RIC) will serve as a home to well-established programs connecting CMU and the Hazelwood community.

Feb 15

Energy & Environment

Shifting gears in the transition to electric vehicles

Electric vehicle emissions costs are anticpated to continue to decline through 2025, after which they will be affected by key factors such as the evolution of the power grid, battery technology, and public policy.

Feb 13

Robotics

RoboTool enables creative tool use in—you guessed it—robots

Large language models enable robots to “brainstorm” creative tool use and perform seemingly impossible tasks.

New research from Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Human+AI Design Initiative underlines the adage “teamwork makes the dream work,” especially when it comes to human-AI collaboration.

Head-to-head: Human vs. AI-human teams

Jan 16

Artificial Intelligence

Automating consistent product design

Researchers develop AI-driven method to automate the discovery of brand related features in product design.

Dec 22

Robotics

Drones CAN navigate dynamic environments

Novel drone navigation technology developed by Kenji Shimada was put to the test in an active Japanese tunnel construction site, enabling drones to approximate where a collision may occur and prevent it.

Dec 19

Robotics

In a world run by catalysts, why is optimizing them still so tough?

CatBERTa, an energy prediction Transformer model, was developed by researchers in Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering in an approach to tackle molecular property prediction using machine learning.

Dec 15

Advanced Manufacturing

Scaling in-situ process monitoring to qualify AM parts

Mechanical Engineering alumnus Luke Scime uses artificial intelligence in the development of Peregrine, a process monitoring software stack to qualify additive manufactured parts at the U.S. national laboratories.

Dec 11

Robotics

Big picture, small robot

A team of mechanical engineering researchers create “Mugatu,” the first steerable bipedal robot with only one motor.