Climate Week at Columbia Engineering

This year–across the 50 teams working together on a variety of engineering challenges–one commonality stood out among them: diversity of expertise. Students expressed the importance of collaboration and how learning from each other helped shape and execute their projects. The capstone amplifies how engineering is a truly interdisciplinary field, and that a big part of thinking outside of the box is working with colleagues who bring different skills and expertise to the table. In this video, four teams– MOBY, ParkinPlay, Thimble, and The Vermont Recreational Center with On-Site Wastewater Treatment–walk us through their projects. These projects exemplify how a breakthrough solution to an engineering problem requires multiple components, varying skill sets, and teamwork. The team members were all inspired to fulfill Columbia’s vision to engineer for humanity, working towards a larger mission that goes beyond problem-solving.

What happens when you mix business students with little to no hands-on engineering experience in a robotics-forward course? The Fundamental Design Tools course turns business students on to state-of-the art robotics. The dual MBA/Executive MS program in business and engineering, in its first year, prepares students to step into leadership roles that require both a rigorous technical background and competence in core business skills. “These days, tech and business are completely aligned,” says Yevgeniy Yesilevskiy, “and you can’t have one without the other.” In the program’s Fundamental Design Tools course taught by Yesilevskiy, lecturer in mechanical engineering, students develop state of the art skills in robotics, coding, and design. This inaugural MBA/MS cohort shares a mix of backgrounds: from strategy consulting and data science to economics and finance. In one semester, they develop robotic arms, which they then train with machine learning algorithms to recognize and sort trash. The course culminates in a timed competition among student teams, determining whose customized system can accurately automate the sorting of trash the fastest. Join Yesilevsky and the class for an ecological robotic arms race.

Degree program combines education in quantum fundamentals with hands-on experience in quantum research labs. The program was created by Columbia Engineering and Columbia’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, includes quantum theory, hands-on research experience in quantum labs, and connections with industry partners.

In our new entrepreneurship series, Tough Tech, Kinnos cofounders, Columbia University alumni Jason Kang ’16SEAS and Katherine Jin ‘16CC, take us inside the Kinnos experience with Harry West, who leads our human-centered design-innovation curriculum. The Kinnos team is pioneering colorization technology to change the way we use disinfectants to keep our healthcare professionals and environments safe and protected.

Innovation and Impact: Columbia Engineering's 2023 Senior Design Expo. Join us in celebrating our seniors' capstone projects which address issues from space junk to potholes, stress mitigation to lab efficiencies. The teams work across departments and skills to identify and produce their sophisticated inventions.

With Columbia Engineering for Humanity, Dean Boyce ushered in a new era at the engineering school, one marked by collaboration, interdisciplinary research, and a focus on how students, faculty, and partners could impact society for the better. See how the vision has expanded over the years, in and outside of the classroom, to our work with industry, government, academia, and local and global communities.

Welcome to Columbia Engineering. In this video we introduce student life which begins with our philosophy of hands on experience in our Art of Engineering class and our famed "Core" Curriculum. Hear from students and faculty about the engineering experience here at Columbia University.

Part Two of our introduction to Columbia Engineering. Take a look at the academic mission from Engineering for Humanity to our Senior Design Expo.

This clip introduces our video series showcasing fifteen of our faculty on lab life and the big picture implications beyond. Whether building predictive climate models, thin-film electronics, or sustainable concrete, our engineers are not only making an impact in their fields — they are changing the world at large. The driving question for all, we discovered, is one from Professor Helen Lu: “How do we use our creativity to apply engineering principles to improve the lives around us?” Take a look at the full playlist and find out.

Most engineering classes in integrated circuit (‘chip’) design only involve computer simulations, but this class at Columbia Engineering gives students a decisive edge: industrial fabrication and testing of chips they design from scratch. In the VLSI Design Lab, Peter Kinget, Bernard J. Lechner Professor of Electrical Engineering, teaches students how to architect and design a custom chip, send it out for fabrication, and debug problems that occur when testing in the real world. VLSI, short for very large-scale integration, is the fabrication of thousands to billions of transistors onto a single silicon microchip. Instead of focusing on just one circuit building block, student teams make many circuit blocks work together into a system to create an application. After they are designed in the spring semester, the chips are manufactured in a 65nm CMOS foundry over the summer for students to test in the fall. Beyond honing their technical skills, students gain valuable experiences in project organization, time management, teamwork and presenting results, key skills to success in industry and research. Check out the class! https://www.ee.columbia.edu/~kinget/EE6350_S22/

After winning a Tesla sponsorship, Columbia’s Formula Racing club speeds toward the future of sustainable transportation. Build an electric racecar from scratch? Go behind the scenes to see the team assemble the key components of their racing vehicle. Music licensed by Team Tribe of Noise.