Innovate a More Sustainable Future

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering leads with a mission of providing students with hands-on experiences that help transform our understanding of and interaction with natural and built environments. Through enriching experiences and groundbreaking research, we believe our students and faculty can design a better world for future generations.

We take a three-part approach. First, we couple fundamental knowledge with real-world experiences. All students have the option to further tailor their academic program, including professional concentrations and minors. Hands-on learning further lets students test out and influence new ideas. Students graduate with the skills necessary to apply engineering designs to improve the human condition.

Discover what Corning Incorporated engineers believe about the importance of developing industry-ready young engineers and how Clarkson University leads the way in preparing our students for success. Watch the video below. 

Pursue a New Challenge

Prepare to develop, devise and implement innovative solutions in Clarkson University’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

In Clarkson University's largest department, we’re strategic, boundary-pushing problem-solvers. Here, think through complex challenges — and achieve results — with a firm and thorough technical curriculum emphasizing hands-on experience, critical thinking, research and career-essential skills like leadership and project management.

Knowing what to do — and how to do it — drives results today and tomorrow.

Undergraduate Programs

Build your future here: design your own course of study to meet your goals and interests. Then, tackle problems relevant to our world while honing analytical, data-gathering, strategy and critical thinking skills in our undergraduate research opportunities, internships, co-ops, SPEED teams, industry-sponsored design projects and study abroad programs.

BS in Aerospace Engineering

BS in Mechanical Engineering

Graduate Programs

Our graduate students rethink the future of mechanical and aerospace engineering — and how systems and devices across industries function. Collaborate with faculty to test and launch new concepts, fuel innovation in our labs and centers and establish yourself with an original thesis.

We also know that working professionals contend with new challenges every day on the job. Upgrade your skills and become the leader your team needs with our Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering for Working Professionals.

MS in Mechanical Engineering 

PhD in Mechanical Engineering

The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation has made a $30-million gift commitment to Clarkson, in support of ongoing excellence in engineering and science programs. This gift, the largest in Clarkson's history, reinforces and broadens Clarkson's most successful learning and research activities.

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Clarkson's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has been named the Wallace H. Coulter School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in recognition of the late Wallace Coulter's dedication to the University as a trustee and the Foundation's generous support.

The extraordinary generosity of the Coulter Foundation will enable the University to realize Wallace Coulter's vision for bioengineering at Clarkson. The gift will enhance research and teaching in accordance with the theme “Technology Serving Humanity.”

Wallace Coulter was a visionary with a keen scientific mind. His ingenuity led to a major breakthrough in science: the Coulter Principle. It provided a methodology for counting, measuring and evaluating microscopic particles suspended in fluid. His invention of the Coulter Counter made possible today’s most common medical diagnostic test: the complete blood count (CBC).

Like Wallace Coulter, Clarkson also builds bridges that make all the difference. Clarkson connects people and technology. It connects the laboratory, classroom and marketplace. It ties theory to application. Clarkson builds bridges between disciplines and links business, engineering, liberal arts and science to facilitate advances beyond the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Clarkson produces graduates who can collaborate effectively with a wide range of professionals in a world full of complex problems.

An interdisciplinary group of Clarkson faculty and graduate students make up the Clarkson Biomass Group (CBG), which formed to investigate and promote the conversion of manure and other wastes into biogas in the North Country of New York State.  Biogas is typically about 60 %  Methane and 40 % Carbon Dioxide.  The gas can be burned to provide heat energy or to generate electrical energy, such as by a biogas-fueled engine-generator.

Why Form a Biomass Group?

The goal of CBG research is to provide the data and understanding necessary to overcome questions of reliability and prove the economic and environmental value of digester-energy recovery systems to increase their implementation. The physical system includes the digester, energy recovery for combined heat and power, emissions to the environment, and value added products. The farmers, markets and regulatory structure comprise the social system considered in this research.

The research is generating quantifiable evidence of the technical, environmental, economic and social efficacy of this integrated system. Through data acquisition and mathematical optimization, the system can be understood well enough to ensure that the best aspects of the system can be replicated elsewhere to maximize the economic benefit to the farmer while minimizing deleterious environmental impacts.