Located just a few miles from Washington, D.C., the Clark School is at the center of a constellation of high-tech companies and federal laboratories, offering students and faculty access to unique professional advancement opportunities with industry and government partners.
Every day our students get hands-on experience that they will take into the world.
Quick Facts
The Clark School is a diverse community of creative thinkers with a shared love of learning. The School serves as a catalyst for high-quality research, innovation, and learning, delivering on a promise that all graduates will leave ready to impact the grand challenges of the 21st century.
Leadership
Darryll J. Pines has served as Dean since January 2009. Dr. Pines has led the Clark School's efforts in raising student retention, achieving success in international student competitions, placing new emphasis on sustainability engineering and service learning, promoting STEM education among high school students, increasing the impact of research programs, and expanding philanthropic contributions to the school. Pines received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Learn more about Dean Pines.
Academic Departments and Annual Degrees Awarded
Number of Degrees Awarded in the Academic Year 2017-2018
Information about the class of 2023 is as follows:
Total Enrollment
656
Average GPA
4.463
ACT Scores
Composite
25th Percentile: 33
75th Percentile: 35
Math Scores
25th Percentile: 32
75th Percentile: 35
Science Scores
25th Percentile: 32
75th Percentile: 35
New SAT Scores
Combined Math/Critical Reading SAT Scores
25th Percentile: 1390
75th Percentile: 1510
SAT Math Scores
25th Percentile: 720
75th Percentile: 790
Women and Underrepresented Racial/Ethnic Minorities (URMs)
207 women (32%)
76 URMs (12%)
Honors College and College Park Scholars
261 (40%) of all ENGR confirmed students are enrolling in the Honors College
156 students (24%) are listed in College Park Scholars
Faculty
The Clark School's nearly 200 faculty members are nationally recognized and highly respected in their fields.
More than 100 faculty members are fellows of engineering professional societies, and more than 50 are recipients of National Science Foundation Early Career Awards.
The Center for Minorities in Science and Engineering (CMSE) and Women in Engineering (WIE) offer many programs, including mentoring, research internships, and summer programs, all of which are designed to aid in maintaining diversity goals. Supporting the efforts of CMSE and WIE, and providing valuable assistance to the Clark School, are three student societies—the Black Engineers Society, the Society of Hispanic Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers. Learn more about diversity at the Clark School.
Philanthropy
The campus has launched its $1.5 billion campaign Fearless Ideas: The Campaign for Maryland. The fundraising campaign — our most ambitious to-date — will focus on elevating and expanding our mission of service, enhancing our academic distinction, and bolstering a leading-edge research enterprise that has the power to improve the lives of millions.
Join us in bringing the Clark School to even greater heights by supporting an element of our school that you feel passionate about:
Support for students, which can come in the form of undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships or donations for student teams and activities. A special opportunity is the Clark Challenge for the Maryland Promise which matches dollar-for-dollar new contributions for need-based undergraduate scholarships.
The E.A. FernandezIDEA Factory will be a space for the greatest minds of our time to work together to create engineering breakthroughs and solve the grand challenges of the 21st century. The IDEA Factory will be home to the student-run incubator Startup Shell and a co-working space for student competition teams.
Endowed chairs, professorships, and fellowships help advance research productivity and recognize excellent teaching. These positions help recruit and retain the best educators.
Hands-On Education and Early Experiential Learning Opportunities
The Clark School provides undergraduates access to early hands-on learning experiences through a variety of programs and offerings.
Keystone: The Clark School Academy of Distinguished Teachers
The Keystone Program encourages the school's best faculty members to teach fundamental freshman and sophomore courses. Faculty members are selected from throughout the school and are assisted by additional support personnel. Courses are closely reviewed to achieve academic excellence and high student interest in courses. Keystone brings beginning engineers an enhanced educational experience, reinforces and recognizes outstanding teaching, and serves a national model for increasing engineering student retention and graduation rates.
Leadership Programs
Clark School of Engineering leadership opportunities, including workshops, campus organizations, and coursework are designed to promote student leadership development and enhance the skills employers are looking for most. There are so many programs to choose from. Learn about them here.
Study Abroad Programs
With over 60 international engineering programs available, the possibilities are endless. The Office of Global Engineering Leadership at the Clark School works with students throughout the process to ensure they find a program that is a good fit. Engineering programs exist in Europe, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and the Middle East.
Introduction to Engineering Design (ENES 100)
The ENES 100 is a project-based course that requires all first-year students to work in teams to develop a complex and multidisciplinary product. Students must apply engineering principles, computer software tools, and technical communication skills to meet all of the product performance and project reporting requirements to build a hovercraft. Student teams compete against one another to determine which team could most successfully navigate a course with their hovercraft creation. Learn more.
Student Competitions
Nothing spurs creativity and innovation more than a combination of incentive and challenge: a reward for achievement, combined with the urgency of a dare to succeed and the reality that we must race against others. We are at our best when we compete. This is why prizes and competitions are crucial to create a climate of innovation and entrepreneurship and to drive new advances in targeted areas. At the Clark School, competing for external prizes has had an enormously positive effect on student development. Read more about our Student Competition Teams.
Hackathon Team: Winner, Major League Hacks Season, MHacks, LA Hacks
Woodstove Decathlon: 1st Place in Emissions in Wood Stove Decathlon
MaxTech: 1st Place in Max Tech and Beyond Design Competition for Ultra-Low-Energy-Use Appliances and Equipment
AHS Student Design: 1st Place in the American Helicopter Society's 30th Annual Student Design Competition
RASC-AL Robo-Ops: 2nd Place in the NASA RASC-AL Exploration Robo-Ops Competition
ChemE Car: Reached top-five finals round for fourth consecutive year
Steel Bridge Team: Reached finals of the National Student Steel Bridge Competition
Terps Racing: Terps Racing Baja Team placed 13th out of 100 teams in the Baja SAE
NASA X-Hab: Two University of Maryland teams finalists in the eXploration-Habitat (X-Hab) Academic Innovation Challenge
Gamera: World Record for Human-Powered Helicopter Flight Duration, 97 seconds
Solar Decathlon: First Place in the U.S. Solar Decathlon Competition
Leading Research
The Clark School is leading research advancements in aerospace, bioengineering, robotics, nanotechnology, disaster resilience, energy and sustainability, and cybersecurity. From the universal product code to satellite radio to SMS text messaging to the implantable insulin pump, our students, faculty, and alumni are engineering life-changing innovations for millions.
Engineers create the newest products, services, and ideas to improve human health, safety, and happiness! Being a Clark School engineering student can open the doors to success for you from day one.
Professional Opportunities for Students
The University of Maryland’s location inside the capitol beltway provides unique professional opportunities to students. The Clark School’s Engineering Career Services Office provides a full range of career development programs and services to students and employers interested in cooperative education, internships, and post-graduation engineering positions.
Corporate Partner Highlights
The Clark School has developed strong ties with corporate partners with an emphasis on long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with a 360-degree approach, capitalizing on opportunities for student recruitment, workforce development, advanced professional education programs, collaborative research, and shared goals and objectives. Some examples of Clark School corporate partner relationships include:
Leidos Invests $3.5M in Innovation at UMD
With their 2017 gift to the Fearless Ideas campaign, Leidos funded the Leidos Innovation Lab in A. James Clark Hall. The Lab provides open spaces and resources for students to work in teams on capstone projects. The Leidos Innovation Lab has become a vibrant environment for students to do classwork or independent studying. A portion of the gift also support Maryland Athletics
Northrop Grumman - A Multi-Faceted Relationship
Northrop Grumman invests in UMD’s leading engineering, cybersecurity research and education programs. Their support impacts programs that promote diversity in STEM, talent development, research efforts, student teams and activities. The Northrop Grumman Collaboration Space, located on the UMD campus, hosts student competition and company recruiting events. The company is strongly committed to the development of the Clark School – Northrop Grumman was the top recruiter of Clark School graduates during the 2017-18 school year and is leading philanthropic partner of the Clark School of Engineering.
Lockheed Martin - UMD Strategic Partnership
Lockheed Martin is the leading funder of research at the Clark School and across the UMD campus – their investments support engineering across disciplines. Additionally, the company is a leading recruiter on campus and makes contributions in support of program that promote diversity in STEM, student teams and activities. Lockheed Martin also has a location on the UMD campus – the Lockheed Martin Suite is located in the Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building.
Whiting-Turner's Continued Commitment to Educational Opportunities
Whiting-Turner is highly engaged with the Clark School and the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) department, with representatives on both boards. Their support was integral to CEE’s Whiting-Turner Infrastructure Laboratories, which was a full-scale renovation of the civil engineering labs to provide students with state-of-the-art facilities for hands-on learning. The company supports the Distinguished Whiting-Turner Lecture Series and scholarship programs annually.
Glodon Makes Important Investment in Construction Research
The Clark School’s most recent addition to our Corporate Partners Program, Glodon recently invested $500,000 in smart construction research, fellowships, and curriculum enhancement for the Civil and Environmental Engineering department. Glodon is the largest construction software firm in China, and is eager to expand our partnership to make an even greater impact with the Clark School of Engineering.
Engineers have the unique capability to innovate and design novel products and solutions that can improve millions of lives. At the University of Maryland (UMD) A. James Clark School of Engineering, we place a special emphasis on aiming for this ultimate outcome—transforming fearless ideas into new innovations that benefit millions. This is what we call “Mpact.”
Our cutting edge, interdisciplinary research initiatives are focused on the most challenging and critical issues of our time. In approaching complex problems, UMD faculty members immerse themselves in creativity and innovation, moving research ideas from the bench top to the market.
Our capabilities for Mpact are broad. We are leading research advancements in energy and sustainability, aerospace, bioengineering, robotics, biomedical devices, nanotechnology, fire protection, and disaster resilience.
These capabilities can help transform lives not only nationally but internationally. The world's population is now over 7 billion people. In the next two decades, almost 2 billion more people will inhabit the Earth. It has been estimated that 95 percent of that growth will take place in developing or underdeveloped countries. Engineers have a role and responsibility in helping to solve global problems.
In addition to faculty research and innovation, our students are engaged in international outreach through programs like Engineers Without Borders and Maryland Sustainability Engineering. These groups are committed to sustainable development across the region and abroad, visiting places like Peru, Sierra Leone, and Ethiopia to improve communities through engineering projects, including powering schools sustainably, making drinking water safe, and creating new community centers.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
From entrepreneurial education, including a pioneering living-learning program, to personal mentoring and an on-campus incubator, Clark School and Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute programs are national leaders in spurring technology-based entrepreneurship. Visit Entrepreneurship & Innovation to learn about all of our programs.
Minor in Technology Entrepreneurship:
Develops the entrepreneurial mindset and functional skillsets of students to improve their ability to create, launch, and manage technology ventures
Young Scholars Discovery:
Summer course for seventh or eighth grade students interested in entrepreneurship
Young Scholars Program:
Summer courses for high school students interested in entrepreneurship, high-tech marketing and biopharmaceutical production
Entrepreneurship Courses
Entrepreneurship Rankings
In the Princeton Review's "Top 50 Schools For Entrepreneurship Programs," published in Entrepreneur magazine, the University of Maryland ranks 8th for its undergraduate program and 25th for its graduate program.
DC iCorps
DC I-Corps is a regional program designed to foster, grow and nurture an innovation ecosystem in the nation’s capital, the nearby states of Maryland and Virginia, and the mid-Atlantic region. The program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and jointly run by the University of Maryland, George Washington University, and Virginia Tech.
StartUp Shell
Startup Shell is a new student-run technology collective that advances student ventures while leading educational initiatives in the greater campus community. It provides work space resources and business direction through a vibrant, collaborative environment.
Mtech
The Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech) has a three-part mission to educate the next generation of technology entrepreneurs, create successful technology ventures, and connect Maryland companies with university resources to help them succeed.
Mtech has had a $25.7 billion impact on the Maryland economy since 1983. Top-selling products such as MedImmune’s Synagis®, which protects infants from a deadly respiratory disease, and Hughes Communications’ HughesNet®, which brings satellite-based, high-speed Internet access to the world, were developed through or enhanced by Mtech programs. Billion-dollar companies such as Martek Biosciences and Digene Corporation graduated from Mtech’s incubator programs.
Alumni Engagement
Our alumni are passionate, curious, and inspired. They stay connected with fellow alumni to prepare for new opportunities and engage with unforgettable events.
Alumni Association
The University of Maryland Alumni Association supports the university in its pursuits of excellence in teaching, research, and public service and seeks to foster a spirit of loyalty, involvement, and life-long commitment to the university in its alumni. Learn more.
Engineering Chapter
The University of Maryland Clark School of Engineering Alumni Chapter supports the welfare and advancement of the university and school through the promotion of educational, social, alumni-focused, and student-focused activities. Learn more about the alumni network.
Alumni Cup
The Alumni Cup is an annual engineering design competition launched in 2012 by the University of Maryland Alumni Association Engineering Network. Teams of students from each department compete against one another in a week-long challenge to develop a machine that will perform a specific task within certain parameters. The task and parameters are given to each team on the Friday before Engineers Week in February. Students have one week and a small stipend with which to design, sketch, and build the best machine within their ability that reflects their department. Teams demonstrate their designs in the Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building Rotunda. The judges’ panel is comprised of five individuals from both the Clark School administration and the Alumni Association. The winning team is memorialized on the Alumni Cup trophy displayed in the west lobby of the Glenn L. Martin Hall.
Early Engagement with the Clark School
One way to have fun and find out if engineering might be a good fit is to try one of the summer programs offered by the Clark School. Participants learn about engineering, participate in hands-on activities, and meet engineering students and professors. The Clark School also offers workshops that give youth a chance to explore engineering during a one-day activity.
SeaPerch Summer Camp equips students with the resources they need to build an underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV).
9th–12th Grade Students
E2@UMD is a one-week commuter summer program at the University of Maryland (UMD) for high school girls who are interested in engineering.
Cyber Defense Training Camp is an intermediate level seven-day residential summer program for rising juniors and seniors in high school.
ESTEEM/SER-Quest is a four-week summer program with lab demonstrations, lab tours, lab experiments, and a SAT Workshop. Students who participate in the program will have the opportunity to have research project with an engineering faculty member.
Discovering Engineering is a summer program for rising juniors or seniors who are considering engineering as a possible major and career.
Pre-College Scholars Program focuses on preparing for the S.A.T. and learning about tools and strategies to navigate the college application process.
S.P.I.C.E. Camp is a commuter program for young women who would like to learn more about engineering
Clark School Contributions to Innovation
Wide-ranging technologies, which enhance everyday life for millions of people, have been pioneered by Clark School alumni, faculty, and friends. Advances featured in our Innovation Hall of Fame serve to inspire Clark School students and visitors.
Glenn L. Martin
Glenn L. Martin, benefactor
Pioneer airplane builder
A. James Clark
A. James Clark, class of 1950, benefactor
Chairman and CEO of Clark Enterprises, Inc.
Jeong H. Kim
Jeong H. Kim, class of 1991, benefactor
Founder of Yurie Systems
Former president of Bell Labs
Robert E. Fischell
Robert E. Fischell, benefactor
Inventor of medical devices, including the flexible coronary artery stent
Brian Hinman
Brian Hinman, class of 1982
Benefactor
Co-founder of Polycom
Educational innovator
Harry B. Smith
Harry B. Smith, class of 1949
Inventor of the pulse Doppler radar
George Laurer
George Laurer, class of 1951
Creator of the universal product code
Robert Briskman
Robert Briskman, class of 1961
Co-founder of Sirius Satellite Radio
Brendan Iribe
Brendan Iribe, former student
Co-founder and CEO of Oculus VR, purchased by Facebook by $2B
