Departments

Across six academic departments, the Hajim School offers 17 cutting-edge degree and certificate programs. Visit our department pages to learn more about program details, our world-class faculty, specific admissions criteria, and more.

Biomedical Engineering

Our biomedical engineers apply engineering principles, design concepts, and scientific knowledge to engineer better solutions in biomedical research and health care. At Rochester, our students learn about and can conduct research in various subfields, including biomechanics, medical imaging, bio-nanotechnology, tissue engineering, biomedical optics, and neuroengineering. Our department also has close ties to the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), allowing for unique interdisciplinary research opportunities and collaborations.

Visit the biomedical engineering website to learn more.

Chemical Engineering

Chemical engineering applies scientific methods to convert raw materials into valuable products while protecting and improving the environment. At Rochester, we are working to develop more efficient and sustainable chemical processes, find alternative energy solutions, and apply the fundamentals to biology, pharmaceutical sciences, and medicine. Meanwhile, our students have opportunities to collaborate with faculty on research projects in labs featuring state-of-the-art equipment.

Visit the chemical engineering website to learn more.

Computer Science

Research by our computer science faculty impacts both the infrastructure and the applications of computing, ranging across system efficiency and security, computational social choice and algorithmic game theory, mining and predicting social and health outcomes, and natural language and video understanding. The research is often interdisciplinary, leading to collaborations across several departments and centers within the University.

Visit the computer science department website to learn more.

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Electrical and computer engineering is the bedrock of the digital age, from communications and networks to robotics, media, and consumer electronics, with research that has broad societal impact across multiple fields, including energy, health and medicine, the connected world, and music. Our students learn the fundamentals of circuits and systems, electromagnetics, microelectronics, digital systems, computer architecture, signals, and communications.

Visit the electrical and computer engineering and audio and music engineering websites to learn more.

Mechanical Engineering

Design, manufacturing, industry collaborations, research innovations—mechanical engineering combines these and more. Many of our researchers hold joint appointments in other engineering and science departments, allowing us to develop cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research.

Our students apply the latest software to solve problems of solids and fluids, energy, materials science, mechanical systems, and advanced power. They do so through extensive hands-on work as well as design and experimental projects.

Visit the mechanical engineering website to learn more.

The Institute of Optics

Institute researchers study both optics—the science of light and the interaction of light with matter, and optical engineering—the discipline of solving problems with optics and photonics. The Institute of Optics was the first of its kind and is a leader in quantum optics and laser physics. It’s also home to the Industrial Associates Program, where the Institute partners with industry to provide cutting edge training and networking within the field of optics.

Visit the Institute of Optics website to learn more.

More about the departments

Full Spectrum

The Full Spectrum video series are brief introductory lectures from our Hajim faculty and is intended to be a resource for current and prospective students who are considering an academic path in engineering or computer science.

Hajim faculty talk about their program, their research, the types of challenges engineers in their field work to solve, and answer a few questions about their path and outlook on becoming an engineer or computer scientist.

Video Series
What is Audio and Music Engineering?What is Biomedical Engineering?
What is Chemical Engineering?What is Computer Science?
What is Electrical and Computer Engineering?What is Mechanical Engineering?
What is Optical Engineering?