Villanova University
College of Engineering
Villanova, Pennsylvania
Overview
Villanova University was founded in 1842 and is a privately supported, coeducational institution. It comprises the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Commerce and Finance, Engineering, and Nursing; the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; and the School of Law. The University and its programs are fully accredited by national and local accrediting agencies, including the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc. (ABET). The high quality of Villanova's engineering programs is recognized by industry, government, and other institutions of higher education.
The College has an undergraduate enrollment of approximately 900 full-time students. There are approximately 40 full-time graduate students and 275 part-time graduate students. The College awards about fifty master's degrees per year.
The Location and Community
Villanova University's handsomely landscaped 240-acre campus is located on suburban Philadelphia's historic Main Line, 12 miles from the city. This beautiful residential area has excellent restaurants and shopping districts and is near the well-known Valley Forge National Park. Direct rail and bus service is available from the campus to the center of Philadelphia, with its many cultural, historic, and sports attractions.
Programs of Study and Degree Requirements
The College of Engineering currently has graduate degree programs offered by the following departments: Chemical (CHE), Civil and Environmental (CEE), Electrical and Computer (ECE), and Mechanical (ME) Engineering. In addition to the traditional master's degree designations in each of these four engineering disciplines, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering provide the opportunity to pursue a graduate degree in more highly specified areas within their respective fields, such as transportation, water resources and environmental, and computer engineering. Concentrations within each of the disciplines are also available. Students who successfully complete any of the following degree programs receive a master's degree: Master of Chemical Engineering, Master of Civil Engineering, Master of Mechanical Engineering, Master of Science in Computer Engineering, Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, Master of Science in Transportation Engineering, and Master of Science in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering. The College of Engineering has recently initiated a new interdisciplinary doctoral program leading to a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Engineering. The primary purpose of this program is to provide scholars for industry and academe, emphasizing the attributes of excellence, innovation, and integrity.
Facilities & Resources
The CEE department maintains laboratory facilities for teaching and research in structural, geotechnical, and water resources and environmental engineering. The structural facilities contain hydraulic testing and electronic instrumentation/data acquisition equipment, three self-contained machines for static and dynamic testing, and a 400,000-pound test frame to accommodate full-scale structural components. Geotechnical facilities are available to characterize and analyze engineering behavior of materials. The environmental and water resources laboratories are equipped to conduct a full range of water quality testing and treatment experiments for physical, chemical, and aerobic and anaerobic biological processes.
The CHE department maintains modern laboratory facilities to support both undergraduate and graduate educational programs as well as research. Dedicated research laboratories support several on-going faculty research programs in such areas as supercritical processing, gas phase chemical reaction mechanisms, biotechnology, and process control. In addition, the department maintains extensive general purpose laboratory capabilities for those students who carry out independent investigation as part of their program of studies.
The ECE department's research and instructional facilities include laboratories for the study of control systems, intelligent systems, solid state devices, microwaves, microcontrollers, electronics, digital systems and microprocessors, advanced electronics, advanced computer systems, antenna anechoic chambers, antenna research, communications, and signal processing.
The ME laboratories include both instructional and research facilities. Equipment is available for experimental work in heat transfer and thermal management, fluid flow, vibrations, stress analysis, thermodynamics, combustion, power, robotics, and materials science. A state-of-the-art scanning electron microscope, static and dynamic universal test machines, and jet impingement equipment are available. The department participates in the College of Engineering's computer-aided engineering facility and has a computer-aided manufacturing laboratory with computer numerically controlled (CNC) machines and robots.
Expenses and Aid
For 2004-05, tuition was $725 per credit. General University fees were $60 per semester. Tuition and fees are waived for graduate assistants and tuition scholars.
Financial Aid:
A limited number of University assistantships paying tuition plus a stipend ($11,000 per year in 2004-05) are available for graduate students. Research and tuition scholarships may also be available. Eligibility for low-interest student loans is determined by the Financial Aid Office.
Housing/Living Expenses:
On-campus housing is not available for graduate students, but listings of furnished rooms and apartments are maintained by the University's Off-Campus Housing Service. Public transportation includes two rail lines and bus service. There is ample parking space, which costs $75 per year for students.
How to Apply / Application
Application forms for admission and financial support may be obtained from the Office of University Admissions or the College of Engineering's Web site. Scores on the General Test of the Graduate Record Examinations are required for international applicants and graduates of institutions that are not accredited by ABET.
International Applicants
International applicants must give evidence of adequate proficiency in the English language by achieving a score of at least 600 (250 on the computer-based test) on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).
Who to Contact
College of Engineering
Villanova University
800 East Lancaster Avenue
Villanova, Pennsylvania 19085
610-519-4940
E-mail: deanegr@villanova.edu
College of Engineering Home Page
Graduate Programs, Faculty and Research
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Ronald A. Chadderton, Ph.D., Professor and Chairman; PE. Water resources, economy, risk.
• David W. Dinehart, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Structural analysis and design, mechanics.
• Metin Duran, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Environmental microbiology, water and wastewater treatment.
• Edward F. Glynn, Ph.D., Assistant Professor; PE. Measurements, soil mechanics, engineering geology.
• Shawn P. Gross, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Structural mechanics.
• Chiu Liu, Ph.D., Assistant Professor; PE. Probability, statistics, engineering materials, transportation.
• Emily Parkany, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Travel behavior, transportation.
• Rominder P. S. Suri, Ph.D., Associate Professor; PE. Environmental chemistry, water and wastewater.
• Robert G. Traver, Ph.D., Associate Professor; PE. Hydraulics, hydrology, water quality management.
• Andrea L. Welker, Ph.D., Assistant Professor; PE. Soil mechanics, geomaterials.
• Joseph R. Yost, Ph.D., Assistant Professor; PE. Structural analysis and mechanics.
Chemical Engineering
• Donald D. Joye, Ph.D., Professor. Heat transfer, fluid mechanics, unit operations, rheology.
• C. Michael Kelly, Ph.D., Professor and Chairperson. Process modeling, new technologies.
• William J. Kelly, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Fermentation, computational fluid dynamics, bioprocessing.
• Kenneth R. Muske, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Process modeling, model-based control, numerical analysis, optimization.
• Vito L. Punzi, Ph.D., Professor. Process modeling, industrial waste treatment.
• Edward R. Ritter, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Chemical kinetics, computational quantum chemistry.
• Dorothy Skaf, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Material science, chemical vapor deposition, chemical process safety.
• Randy D. Weinstein, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Supercritical fluids, thermal management of electronics, thermodynamics.
Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Moeness G. Amin, Ph.D., Professor. Multidimensional signal processing, time-varying spectral analysis, adaptive filtering, signal detection and enhancement, noise canceling, system identification.
• Kevin M. Buckley, Ph.D., Professor. Optimum and adaptive filtering, parameter and spectrum estimation, communications, digital signal-processing applications.
• Julia V. Bukowski, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Large-scale systems; network theory; hardware, network, and software reliability.
• Robert H. Caverly, Ph.D., Associate Professor. RF, microwave, and microelectronic device and system design.
• Frank N. DiMeo, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Real-time control and automation, robotics, man-machine interfacing, image processing FORTH language, neural networks.
• Harry Dwyer, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Signal processing, computer architecture, simulator development.
• Ahmad Hoorfar, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Electromagnetic field theory, microwave and millimeter-wave antennas and circuits, transient electromagnetics.
• Mark Jupina, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Physical and electrical characterization of microelectronic materials and devices, modeling and analysis of microwave devices.
• Stephen Konyk Jr., Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Nonlinearly constrained adaptive filtering and estimation, with applications to detective systems.
• Edward Kresch, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Computers, programming, microprocessors and microcomputer design.
• Sarvesh Kulkarni, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Wireless communication, adaptive routing algorithms, communication traffic.
• Frank J. Mercede, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Power electronics and systems.
• Bijan Mobasseri, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Computer vision and machine intelligence, intelligent robotics, hierarchical representations, parallel architectures for vision, pattern recognition, image processing.
• Richard J. Perry, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Computational algorithms and software, VLSI design, multivariable systems.
• James Peyton-Jones, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Nonlinear dynamics, signal processing, control, computer engineering.
• S. S. Rao, Ph.D., Professor and Chairman. Digital signal processing; estimation, detection, and identification algorithms.
• Pritpal Singh, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Fabrication and characterization of electronic materials and devices.
Mechanical Engineering
• Hashem Ashrafiuon, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Optimal design, multibody dynamics, robotics.
• Young W. Chun, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Solid mechanics, optimal design, numerical methods.
• Amy Fleischer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Convective heat transfer, jet impingement, thermal management of electronics.
• Rebecca Hoffman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Mechanical design, solid mechanics, numerical simulation of nonlinear systems.
• Kei-Peng Jen, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Materials science, fracture mechanics, fatigue, failure analysis.
• Gerard F. Jones, Ph.D., Professor and Chairman. Heat transfer, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, solar energy utilization.
• Kenneth A. Kroos, Ph.D., Associate Professor; PE. Thermofluids, biofuel technology, computer graphics.
• C. Nataraj, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Dynamics, controls, robotics.
• T. Radhakrishnan, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Manufacturing processes/planning, CAD/CAM/automation.
• Sridhar Santhanam, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Manufacturing processes, smart materials.
• Alan M. Whitman, Ph.D., Professor; PE. Asymptotic methods, dynamic analysis, wave propagation.
Research Centers
The College of Engineering operates three research organizations, the Center for Advanced Communication, the Villanova Center for Environment, and the Center for Nonlinear Dynamics and Control.
The Center for Advanced Communication (CAC) was established to guide students by connecting them with the industrial community. The technological goal of the center is to become established as the leading provider of communications research in the Delaware Valley. Its marketing goal is to train students through academic and research channels and to promote economic growth and job creation in the telecommunications industry. The research done by the center is performed by faculty members from universities throughout the Delaware Valley as well as high school, undergraduate, and graduate students. Students engage in team-based research involving a professor, other students, and sponsor representatives who act as mentors. At the conclusion of the graduate program, these students are fully qualified to take responsible positions in industry.
The Villanova Center for the Environment (VCE) affirms its' commitment to environmental stewardship-locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. The University acknowledges its responsibility to make available to the community beyond its physical borders the broad knowledge, experience, and expertise of its faculty and staff members and its students to find new ways to minimize environmental degradation and to help solve environmental problems. Toward these ends, the VCE seeks to foster and facilitate interaction between university researchers and students, industry, governments, communities, and school districts.
The Center for Nonlinear Dynamics & Control (CENDAC) comprises an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the four engineering departments. CENDAC's mission is to conduct fundamental and applied research on nonlinear dynamics and control in the focus areas of automotive applications, electromechanical systems, and structural design. The Center seeks to apply advanced theoretical and experimental techniques to solve real world problems, to promote and foster strong interdisciplinary research at Villanova, and to aid in the educational process of the undergraduate and graduate students by encouraging and funding their involvement in the research projects. The center also seeks to develop and transfer technology to the industry consistent with the industry's