Brandeis Magazine

Winter 2024/2025

Building a Different Kind of Engineer

Two students build a model on a table.
Students work together in the Modeling and Simulation engineering course.

Photo Credit: Dan Holmes

When he was a high school student looking at colleges, Vincent Calia-Bogan ’25 applied to several stand-alone engineering schools. However, he was concerned he would end up studying primarily with other engineers. Receiving a well-rounded education in the arts and humanities was essential to his interests and goals, too.

So he came to Brandeis to study neuroscience. “What stood out to me was the strong emphasis Brandeis places on multidisciplinary studies,” he says. “To me, studying the liberal arts is a practice in becoming sympathetic. And the scientists and engineers who understand the social aspects behind the problems they seek to solve — and are sympathetic to the people affected by those problems — almost always end up doing the best work.”

Now, as Brandeis prepares to launch its own engineering program, it’s doing so with students like Calia-Bogan in mind. It’s also responding to market demand. As technology advances and people seek to leverage it to address societal challenges, the need for skilled engineers is growing. In fact, given the increasingly competitive landscape facing higher education, the Undergraduate Admissions office believes there is no better time for Brandeis to offer students the opportunity to pursue engineering in this unique and very multidisciplinary way.

The goal? To produce a new generation of technically skilled, intellectually nimble, and socially minded engineers. Tikkun olam, the Jewish value meaning “to repair the world,” underpins the curriculum. The program will provide training in how engineers think, design, and solve problems. Coursework will draw from across the life and physical sciences, as well as from the liberal arts and business. At the same time, students from outside the major will have the opportunity to engage with engineering concepts and tools, and bring technological innovation to diverse disciplines, from biology to archaeology.

Many engineering students work on various projects at a long table.
Students work on team projects in the new engineering classroom.
Photo Credit: Gaelen Morse

“Rather than focusing solely on traditional disciplines like mechanical or electrical engineering, our program will provide a versatile engineering education grounded in scientific fundamentals,” says Seth Fraden, GSAS PhD’87, engineering program co-chair and professor of physics. “It will equip students to apply their knowledge across a range of fields while also providing a strong foundation for students wishing to specialize.”

The program will leverage Brandeis’ historic strengths in engineering-related fields such as neuroscience, computer science, and biomaterials. Brandeis is widely recognized nationally as a leader in biomaterials research, as evidenced by its prestigious Bioinspired Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, which has been funded by the National Science Foundation since 2008. New engineering faculty embedded in traditional science departments will bring transformative technology to Brandeis research endeavors, and help translate scientific discoveries into new products and applications.

“That integration is key to shaping engineers who can work side by side with scientists and business leaders to solve important and pressing problems,” says Avital Rodal, program co-chair and professor of biology.

Meanwhile, Calia-Bogan is excited to see the program take shape. “The target audience really is students exactly like me,” he says. He was delighted to provide input during the development of the first course and serve as its first teaching assistant.

Brandeis began offering its first engineering course, Introduction to Design Methodology, in fall 2023. A year later, a second course, called Modeling and Simulation — in which students build models of physical systems like mass transport systems — launched. Courses on environmental engineering and biomedical instrumentation will be offered this spring. These courses are open to several different majors, bringing engineering thinking and tools to students across the Brandeis curriculum.

Faculty from across the disciplines will collaborate with dedicated engineering faculty on teaching and research. The program made its first faculty hire this past fall: associate professor Jonathan Krones, who helped launch Boston College’s human-centered engineering program.

Classes meet in a new active-learning classroom and digital fabrication space in Abelson Hall. The classroom features more than 30 machines, including 3D printers; laser cutters; and devices for cutting, drilling, and milling. (The classroom will also be used by other programs. For example, students in the humanities course Ancient Technologies, Modern Approaches use 3D scanning and printing technologies to reconstruct and study ancient artifacts.)

These milestones hint at what’s to come when the full program launches in fall 2026. Rodal looks forward to seeing the impact the program will have on the university and the world at large.

“We’re a small community of people who know each other very well,” she says. “This leads to spontaneous interactions, which can then lead to really amazing breakthroughs. Brandeis presents a really unique environment for these kinds of collaborations. The potential for discovery, for invention is limitless.”