The Department of Mechanical Engineering is located in Etcheverry Hall, on the Berkeley campus. The campus is centered in the San Francisco Bay Area, and next door to Silicon Valley. This geographical location places our faculty, staff, and students in one of the most exciting areas in the world for mechanical engineering at the beginning of the 21st century. The Department’s research projects are primarily funded by the National Science Foundation, governmental agencies, and the many industries located around Berkeley and the Silicon Valley. In this dynamic environment our students find themselves inundated with job offers and exciting career opportunities throughout the United States, as well as worldwide.
With the turn of the century, the field of mechanical engineering enters a particularly vital era. The"information age,"born in the last century, has already affected every aspect of our discipline and, without a doubt, revolutionized the field of mechanical engineeering.
At the beginning of the 20th century, mechanical engineers designed and worked with large rotating machines. Today, our work spans all areas of energy production and transfer, as well as the vast area of system design and control. A survey of our faculty's current research projects is a voyage through a world complex enough to include robotics, miniaturization, automated manufacturing, automated highway systems, biomaterials, computer mechanics, improved efficiency internal combustion engines, and the dynamics and control of both ground vehicles and aircraft.
