The Unconventional Engineer
Volume 3: Engineering Optimism | 2021-2022
Letter from the Dean
Every day here at Tandon, I see reasons for optimism. I’m buoyed by our entire community’s transformational work to address the issues plaguing society, and as a born optimist I find there is nothing conventional about optimism; which is why this volume is titled: The Unconventional Engineer: Engineering Optimism. It will give you a good overview of the strides we’re making.
Part of what fuels my optimism is that NYU Tandon continues to be a magnet for engineers who want to make a global impact, which is reflected in our U.S. News & World Report rankings jump from #46 to #33 over the last 5 years. In that same timeframe, we’ve seen our graduate applications rise by 97% and our undergraduate applications increase by 77%. Our online population is also growing at an astounding rate, with nearly 1,000 new and continuing students currently enrolled in our for-credit Masters programs and tens of thousands more in our non-credit offerings. This increase in reputation, desire to be a part of our community, and willingness to join non-traditional programs leaves me confident that this new generation of problem-solvers will build upon our strong foundation dating back to 1854.
Resiliency
Building optimism by preparing for the worst
Sustainability
Securing the planet for future generations
Health Engineering
Healthcare that’s smarter, fairer, & more within reach
Urban Innovation
Increased urbanization calls for increased livability
The Future is Bright
It Was a Winning Year for Tandon
Whether they’re designing a rocket capable of flying an important payload or building a network of sensors to detect flooding, NYU Tandon students and faculty prove the power of teamwork and collaboration.
Student Achievements
Our Newest Faculty Members
We take great pride in being a school whose faculty has included such luminaries as the “Father of Polymer Science” Herman Mark and microwave pioneer Ernst Weber. We take equal pride in our current faculty members, who are making notable strides in a wide variety of cutting-edge fields, including wireless communications, protein engineering, and clean energy. This year they will be joined by one of the largest groups of new incoming faculty in recent memory — teaching and researching in areas from environmental engineering to AI and beyond — and poised to contribute to the Tandon legacy in their own ways.
Research Achievements
Tandon researchers are producing big ideas, with big funding to back it up. Multiple projects from our researchers received grants worth over a million dollars, including:
- $4 million for FloodNet, a collaborative project that seeks to install flood sensors across New York City in order to build an early warning system for those in harm’s way.
- $5 million from DARPA awarded to VIDA to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) “virtual assistant” providing just-in-time visual and audio feedback to help with task execution.
- $2.5 million for the launch of a New York-based Offshore Wind Innovation Hub that will facilitate partnerships with start-ups that bring new technological solutions to the rapidly growing US offshore wind industry.
- $2.5 million in National Science Foundation (NSF) grants to several teams of wireless researchers, whose projects will focus on making current and future wireless infrastructure, software and hardware systems more resilient to flaws, accidents, subterfuge and hacks.
- $2 million from the NSF to create and grow the use of data-intensive technologies in healthcare, including telehealth and AI based tools. The project will help modernize healthcare systems and improve outcomes for patients.
- $1 million dollars to develop a database search engine to help experts to weed through the vast amount of publicly available information to discover datasets that are needed for their specific applications.
