Newsletter Message From the Chair

As we embark on a new year, we pause to reflect on the past year’s accomplishments and to look forward to the opportunities 2024 will bring us! In July 2023, I began my second 3-year term as chair and I am excited to lead this wonderful department as we continue to grow our faculty, expand our research spaces, and innovate in our classrooms and our labs. 

In this newsletter, we are highlighting the impact and accomplishments of our students, staff, and faculty in our four areas of excellence: Research, Education, Community, and Infrastructure.

Our faculty and students are engaged in cutting-edge research programs, as highlighted in the research briefs. Our community is also recognized for teaching excellence and societal impact through our engagement with the local community. We continue to grow our faculty. For example, this August, we welcomed Professor Kintu Early, as our new Director of the Masters of Engineering program and our first Professor of Practice in the department. 

In terms of infrastructure excellence, anyone who has visited campus recently has seen the Thurston Addition project, which now dominates the Engineering Quad. It is the first new building on the Engineering Quad since I started at Cornell over 18 years ago. Construction of this new building will substantially expand our departmental research lab space and our undergraduate and M.Eng. teaching lab spaces! In August 2024, four MSE research groups will move into state-of-the-art lab spaces on the fourth floor, our junior lab course will be taught in a brand new lab space on the third floor, and our M.Eng. program will have a design lab space on the second floor! This space presents huge opportunities to innovate in both education and research for our department.

In this issue we are featuring the Distinguished Alumni Award presented to Dr. Bill LaFontaine in recognition of his outstanding career as a leader in industry. We are so proud of all our alumni and are especially grateful to those who have given their time and resources to support the research, students, and new initiatives outlined on our website.

I hope you’ll find a reason to visit campus this year or sometime in the future. In the meantime, we continue to grow our MSE community on LinkedIn, so please consider connecting with us there, on our Facebook or Twitter pages, or through email.

Warm regards,

Lara Estroff

Department Chair