Graduate Research Opportunities

The School of Engineering & Applied Science offers graduate students a wide range of research opportunities in many facets of Engineering:

Applied Physics:
Fields include areas of theoretical and experimental condensed-matter physics, optical and laser physics, and material physics. Specific programs include surface science, microlithography and quantum transport, optical properties of micro-cavities, spectroscopy at the nanoscale, near-field microscopy, atomic force microscopy and ferro-electronic materials, molecular beam epitaxy, mesoscopic physics, first principles electronic structure methods, and medical instrumentation.

Biomedical Engineering:
Fields include the physics of image formation (MRI, ultrasound, nuclear medicine, and X-ray), NMR spectroscopy, PET and modeling, digital image analysis and processing, computer vision, biological signals and sensors, biomechanics, physiology and human factors engineering, drug delivery, biotechnology, biomechanics of the spine, and tissue engineering.

Chemical Engineering:
Fields include separation processes, catalysis, combustion, statistical mechanics of adsorption, high-temperature chemical reaction engineering, colloids and complex fluids, nanotechnology, convective heat and mass transfer, biomolecular engineering, biotechnology, molecular beams, aerosol science and technology, materials processing, surface science, and environmental engineering.

Electrical Engineering:
Fields include control systems, neural networks, communications and signal processing, wireless networks, image sensors, sensor networks, biomedical sensory systems, microelectronic materials and semiconductor devices, nanoelectronic science and technology, optoelectronic materials and devices, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), computer engineering, and VLSI design and testing.

Environmental Engineering:
Fields include aquatic and environmental chemistry, physical and chemical processes for water quality control, transport and fate of pollutants in the environment, transport of microbes in aquatic environments, colloidal and interfacial phenomena in aquatic systems, environmental engineering microbiology, environmental molecular biology, water reuse, disinfection by-product formation, emerging contaminants, membrane separations for water quality control, industrial ecology, and chemical reactions at the mineral-water interface.

Mechanical Engineering:

Mechanics of Fluids: Dynamics and stability of drops and bubbles; dynamics of thin liquid films; macroscopic and particle-scale dynamics of emulsions, foams, and colloidal suspensions; electrospray theory and characterization; electrical propulsion applications; combustion and flames; computational methods for fluid dynamics and reacting flows; turbulence; particle tracking in fluid mechanics; laser diagnostics of reacting and nonreacting flows.

Mechanics of Solids/Material Science/Soft Matter: Characterization of crystallization and other phase transformations; studies of thin films, MEMS, smart materials such as shape memory alloys, amorphous metals, and nanomaterials including nanocomposites; jamming and slow dynamics in glasses and granular materials; mechanical properties of soft and biological materials; dynamics of macromolecules; NEMS; nano-imprinting; classical and quantum optomechanics; atomic-scale investigations of surface interactions and properties; classical and quantum nanomechanics; and nanotribology.  Several faculty in Mechanical Engineering are also affiliated with the Integrated Graduate Program in Physical and Engineering Biology (http://www.peb.yale.edu).

Robotics/Mechatronics: Machine and mechanism design; dynamics and control; robotic grasping and manipulation; human-machine interface; rehabilitation robotics; haptics; electromechanical energy conversion; biomechanics of human movement; human powered vehicles.