TheFu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (also known asSEAS orColumbia Engineering; historicallyColumbia School of Mines) is theengineering andapplied science school ofColumbia University, aprivateresearch university inNew York City. It was founded as the School of Mines in 1863 and then the School of Mines, Engineering and Chemistry before becoming the School of Engineering and Applied Science. On October 1, 1997, the school was renamed in honor ofChinese businessmanZ.Y. Fu, who had donated $26 million to the school.
The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science maintains a close research tie with other institutions includingNASA,IBM,MIT, andThe Earth Institute. Patents owned by the school generate over $100 million annually for the university. SEAS faculty and alumni are responsible for technological achievements including the developments ofFM radio and themaser.
The current SEAS faculty include 27 members of theNational Academy of Engineering and oneNobel laureate. In all, the faculty and alumni of Columbia Engineering have won 10 Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics.
The school consists of approximately 300 undergraduates in each graduating class and maintains close links with its undergraduateliberal arts sister schoolColumbia College which shares housing with SEAS students. The School's current dean isShih-Fu Chang, who was appointed in 2022.[1]
Included in the original charter for Columbia College was the direction to teach "the arts of Number and Measuring, of Surveying and Navigation [...] the knowledge of [...] various kinds of Meteors, Stones, Mines and Minerals, Plants and Animals, and everything useful for the Comfort, the Convenience and Elegance of Life." Engineering has always been a part of Columbia, even before the establishment of any separate school of engineering.
An early and influential graduate from the school wasJohn Stevens, Class of 1768. Instrumental in the establishment of U.S. patent law, Stevens procured many patents in early steamboat technology, operated the first steam ferry between New York and New Jersey, received the first railroad charter in the U.S., built a pioneerlocomotive, and amassed a fortune, which allowed his sons to found theStevens Institute of Technology. (Excerpt fromSEAS website.)
When Columbia University first resided onWall Street, engineering did not have a school under the Columbia umbrella. After Columbia outgrew its space on Wall Street, it relocated to what is nowMidtown Manhattan in 1857.Then President Barnard and the Trustees of the University, with the urging of ProfessorThomas Egleston and General Vinton, approved the School of Mines in 1863. The intention was to establish a School of Mines and Metallurgy with a three-year program open to professionally motivated students with or without prior undergraduate training. It was officially founded in 1864 under the leadership of its first dean, Columbia professorCharles F. Chandler, and specialized in mining and mineralogical engineering.An example of work from a student at the School of Mines wasWilliam Barclay Parsons, Class of 1882. He was an engineer on the Chinese railway and the Cape Cod and Panama Canals. Most importantly he worked for New York, as a chief engineer of the city'sfirst subway system, theInterborough Rapid Transit Company. Opened in 1904, the subway's electric cars took passengers from City Hall to Brooklyn, the Bronx, and the newly renamed and relocated Columbia University in Morningside Heights, its present location on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
In 1896, the school was renamed to the "School of Mines, Engineering and Chemistry". During this time, the University was offering more than the previous name had implied, thus the change of name.
The faculty during this time includedMichael I. Pupin, after whomPupin Hall is named. Pupin himself was a graduate of the Class of 1883 and the inventor of the "Pupin coil", a device that extended the range of long-distance telephones. Students of his includedIrving Langmuir, Nobel laureate in Chemistry (1932), inventor of the gas-filled tungsten lamp and a contributor to the development of the radiovacuum tube. Another student to work with Pupin wasEdwin Howard Armstrong, inventor ofFM radio. After graduating in 1913 Armstrong was stationed in France during World War I. There he developed thesuperheterodyne receiver to detect the frequency of enemy aircraft ignition systems. During this period, Columbia was also home to the "Father of Biomedical Engineering"Elmer L. Gaden.
School bulletin, from the era before the most recent name change
The university continued to evolve and expand as the United States became a major political power during the 20th century. In 1926, the newly renamed School of Engineering prepared students for the nuclear age. Graduating with a master's degree,Hyman George Rickover, working with the Navy'sBureau of Ships, directed the development of the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, theNautilus, which was launched in 1954.
The school's first woman graduate received her degree in 1945.[2] After a substantial grant of $26 million from Chinese businessmanZ.Y. Fu, the engineering school was renamed again in 1997. The new name, as it is known today is the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. SEAS continues to be a teaching and research institution, now with a large endowment of over $400 million, and sits under the Columbia umbrella endowment of $7.2 billion.
The admissions rate for the SEAS undergraduate class of 2018 was approximately 7%.[3]
Approximately 95% of accepted students were in the top 10% of their graduating class; 99% were in the top 20% of their class. 58% of admitted students attended high schools that do not rank. The yield rate for the class of 2014 was 59%.[4]
As for SAT scores, SEAS students within the Columbia University community have raised the composite SAT statistic for the undergraduates at Columbia University.[5][6] The Class of 2013's SAT interquartile range was 2060–2320 and 1400–1560 (old SAT). The ACT composite interquartile range was 32–34.
Those accepting enrollment at Columbia SEAS typically completed engineering programs at the undergraduate level and are pursuing professional graduate school in engineering, business, law, or medical school, so as to become what Columbia terms "engineering leaders." Engineering leaders are those who pioneer or define engineering: patent lawyers, doctors with specialties in biophysical engineering, financial engineers, inventors, etc.
Columbia Engineering's graduate programs have an overall acceptance rate of 28.0% in 2010.[7] The PhD student–faculty ratio at the graduate level is 4.2:1 according to the 2008 data compiled byU.S. News & World Report.[8] PhD acceptance rate was 12% in 2010.
As of April 2022, it is ranked 13th among the best engineering schools byU.S. News & World Report, and first within theIvy League, tied withCornell University.[9] Its undergraduate engineering program is ranked 21st in the country, according toU.S. News.[10]
In 2010, theUS National Research Council revealed its new analyses and rankings of American university doctoral programs since 1995. Columbia Engineering ranked 10th in biomedical engineering, 18th in chemical engineering, 26th in electrical engineering, 14th in mechanical engineering (5th in research), 9th in operations research & industrial engineering, 7th in applied mathematics, and 6th in computer sciences.[11]
Columbia'sPlasma Physics Laboratory is part of the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), in which the HBT and Columbia Non-NeutralTorus are housed.
This article's list of alumnimay not follow Wikipedia'sverifiability policy. Pleaseimprove this article by removing names that do not have independentreliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriatecitations.(May 2024)
The School of Engineering and Applied Science celebrates its ties and affiliations with at least 8 alumniNobel Laureates. Alumni of Columbia Engineering have gone on to numerous fields of profession. Many have become prominent scientists, astronauts, architects, government officials, pioneers, entrepreneurs, company CEOs, financiers, and scholars.
Herman Hollerith, Founded a company that merged with other companies to become IBM
Hugh Alessandroni (Columbia College: B.A. 1929, SEAS: 1931), member of theUS Fencing Hall of Fame, 2-time Olympian, 2-time US foil champion, 7 team national championships[25]
Helmut W. Schulz (B.S. 1933, M.S. 1934), President Dynecology, developed uranium centrifugation (gas centrifuge), laser analysis, safe waste conversion
Lynn Conway (B.S. 1962, M.S. 1963), Professor of electrical engineering and computer science atUniversity of Michigan, pioneer inVLSI microchip design, and early activist for transgender rights
Ursula Burns (M.S. 1991), Current CEO ofXerox Corporation, the first woman African-AmericanFortune 500 company CEO; Xerox is also the largest company a woman African American CEO is running.
Eric Kandel Biophysicist,Nobel Laureate, uncovered secrets of synapses. Professor Physicians & Surgeons (1974–); research with the Biomedical Engineering department.
Columbia Engineering faculty are a central force in creating many groundbreaking discoveries that today are shaping life tomorrow. They are at the vanguard of their fields, collaborating with other world-renowned experts at Columbia and other universities to bring the best minds from a myriad of disciplines to shape the future.
Large, well-funded interdisciplinary centers in science and engineering, materials research, nanoscale research, and genomic research are making step changes in their respective fields while individual groups of engineers and scientists collaborate to solve theoretical and practical problems in other significant areas. Last year, Columbia Engineering's 2007–2008 research expenditures were $92,000,000, a very respectable number given the small size of the school. Harvard's research expenditures in the same period were $35,000,000. Columbia Engineering PhD students have ~60% more monetary resources to work with using the research expenditure : PhD student ratio.
The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science occupies five laboratory and classroom buildings at the north end of the campus, including the Schapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Science Research and the new Northwest Building on Morningside Heights. Because of the School's close proximity to the other Morningside facilities and programs, Columbia engineering students have access to the whole of the University's resources.
Carleton Laboratory main testing floor
The School is the site of an almost overwhelming array of basic and advanced research installations which include both the NSEC and the MRSEC NSF-funded interdisciplinary research centers, as well as the Columbia High-Beta Tokamak, theRobert A.W. Carleton Strength of Materials Laboratory, and a 200g geotechnical centrifuge.
The Botwinick Multimedia Learning Laboratory is the School's facility for computer-aided design (CAD) and media development. It is equipped with 50 Apple Mac Pro 8-core workstations, as well as a cluster of Apple Xserves with Xraid storage, that serve the lab's 300-plus users per semester.
Each SEAS department sponsors opportunities to do novel undergraduate research which have applications in the real world. Departmental Chairs supervise students through the process, and mentoring with a professor is provided.
Administered by both the electrical engineering and computer science departments through a joint computer engineering committee.
The combined plan program
The 3–2, B.A./B.S., is designed to provide students with the opportunity to receive both a B.A. degree from an affiliatedliberal arts college and a B.S. degree from SEAS within five years. Students complete the requirements for the liberal arts degree along with a pre-engineering course of study in three years at their college and then complete two years at Columbia.
Finch, James Kip (1954).A History of the School of Engineering, Columbia University. Bicentennial History of Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press.
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