As chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, I would like to welcome you to our department. I hope that your visit to our web page is informative whether you are simply browsing to learn more about us or whether you are interested in our degree programs, our areas of research expertise or our excellent facilities. We are currently experiencing considerable growth as a department and it is an exciting time at the University of North Texas.
Our department transitioned from the College of Arts and Sciences to join the new College of Engineering at UNT in 2003 and we moved to the UNT Research Park in 2004. Since that time, we have undergone numerous transitions. For example, we started a bachelor of science degree and we now have our first batch of undergraduate students preparing to graduate. Surprisingly, we have the only stand-alone Materials Science and Engineering department in the state of Texas and are one of only three universities in Texas that offer an undergraduate degree in a materials science and engineering discipline. We believe that there is a significant market for this new degree among Texas students and the initial indications are that this is indeed the case. |
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Our graduate program continues to grow as well. We now have 12 full-time faculty members with expertise in metals, ceramics, polymers, electronic materials and computational materials science. In the computational area, we continue to search for new faculty who will work closely with our experimental faculty as we try to capitalize on our somewhat unique characterization facilities. I encourage you to check out our facilities elsewhere on our website as they provide faculty and students an opportunity to “set themselves apart” by developing skill sets that are desired by future employers in industry, federal laboratories and academia.
On the research front, the faculty are using our unique facilities to pursue a number of exciting topics including advanced structural materials, materials for conventional and alternative energy sources, fire-resistant and low permeability polymer nanocomposites, novel materials for chemical and biological sensors, microelectronics, optoelectronics, MEMS and NEMS, biomaterials, etc. We pride ourselves on having a collegial, open door environment where student development is a primary focus, as we believe that we are first and foremost an educational institution and students are our number one priority. To this end, we strive to offer competitive research stipends to our graduate students as well as challenging and rewarding research projects that range from theoretical to applied. In fact, since we are located in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, our faculty and students have access to numerous companies who provide support in the
form of research grants, student internship opportunities and, ultimately, jobs for our students. Our goal is to provide interested students opportunities to work with these companies while they work towards their degrees.
In closing, I again welcome you. Please take the time to check us out and, should you have questions or want to come for a visit, don’t hesitate to contact me or any of our faculty members as we value your input. Although we may be relatively new, we are striving to change external perceptions by attracting outstanding faculty, staff, students and facilities and we hope that you will experience the excitement that exists as you roam the halls of our department or the pages of this site. Finally, if you are a potential student, we encourage you to become part of our team as we strive to earn a reputation of developing students to reach levels of excellence in their education and training that will give them the tools necessary to be competitive in all of their future endeavors. |
