Mechanical Engineering

Graduate student experience

Get involved

Carnegie Mellon University graduate students are part of a diverse community of scholars and researchers from around the world. We encourage students to develop themselves and the community beyond academia.

Graduate Student Organizations

MEGSO

Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student Organization

This organization consists of M.S. and PhD students dedicated to enhancing graduate student life in the Department of Mechanical Engineering through a series of academic and social events, in addition to serving as liaisons between MechE grad students and department administrators.

Events include:

Mock Qualifying Exams
Mentorship Program
Townhalls
Faculty Coffee Chats
Happy Hours and cookouts

Graduate Student Assembly

Hosts several events throughout the year to connect other Carnegie Mellon graduate students across the university. https://www.cmu.edu/stugov/gsa/

Ph.D. students run “Cup of Wontons” stall at market Opens in new window

Darren Cheng, Chase McDonald, and Jenny Chang have been running a successful wonton stall at the Squirrel Hill Farmers Market since fall 2023.

Putting the ghost in the machine Opens in new window

To build AI teammates that better reflect human designers, Chris McComb is emulating cognitive styles in large language models.

Research paper Opens in new window

Trustworthy artificial intelligence for the greater good Opens in new window

MechE’s Ding Zhao trains students to enhance the affordability, reliability, and inclusivity of AI through the Trustworthy AI Autonomy course.

One student’s ambition leads Carnegie Mellon to sponsor first ever clinical trial Opens in new window

After four years, Erica Martelly’s dream of testing custom CPAP masks on real patients came to fruition in Carnegie Mellon University’s first ever clinical trial.

Doctoral researchers shine in 3MT championship Opens in new window

College of Engineering students explained complex research and its importance in under three minutes in the annual Three Minute Thesis competition.

These defects are not to be mistaken as scratches Opens in new window

Shrinkage porosity, a common defect in metal castings, has been identified in laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing.

Big picture, small robot Opens in new window

A team of mechanical engineering researchers create “Mugatu,” the first steerable bipedal robot with only one motor.

Watch the Video Opens in new window

Chop, chop: Improving food prep with the power of AI Opens in new window

Researchers at CMU combined two vision foundational models—models trained on large visual data sets—to help a robot arm recognize the shape and the type of fruit and vegetable slices.

See More Stories

So tricky, a robot can do it Opens in new window

Carnegie Mellon Researchers have taken inspiration from geckos to create a material that adheres to wet and dry surfaces, even on an incline.

Meitz first in 25 years to receive DOE graduate fellowship Opens in new window

Mechanical engineering student Ethan Meitz is working to create predictive nanoscale models for the thermophysical properties of liquids.

Dowd Fellowship supports “high-risk, high-reward” research Opens in new window

Each year, thanks to a generous gift from alumnus Philip Dowd (B.S. MSE ’63) and his wife Marsha, the Dowd Engineering Seed Fund for Graduate Student Fellowships supports a year of doctoral expenses for multiple Ph.D. students.

Presidential and graduate fellowships awarded Opens in new window

College of Engineering Dean Bill Sanders is pleased to congratulate the 46 graduate students who have been awarded fellowships for the 2023-24 academic year.

Gwen’s Girls partnership fosters children’s interest in robomechanics Opens in new window

A student-driven partnership between Aaron Johnson’s RoboMechanics lab and Gwen’s Girls has introduced nearly 100 grade school girls to engineering design and robotics.

A sweet way to teach kids about manufacturing Opens in new window

Sneha Prabha Narra uses hands-on activities to introduce engineering and additive manufacturing concepts to local grade school students.

Driving autonomy into the metaverse Opens in new window

Students in Ding Zhao’s lab were awarded the 2022 Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship for their proposal to generate diverse safety-critical autonomous vehicle scenarios using digital twins.

Students’ ingenuity automates scientific research Opens in new window

In an effort to modernize scientific research, CMU students used only commercial parts and the cardboard boxes they came in to build a modular robot able to autonomously conduct experiments.