Category: Our History

Cornell Engineering Strategic Plan cover

Dean Lynden Archer launches a 10-year strategic plan to establish Cornell Engineering as a center of excellence in innovating impactful solutions to the most difficult problems

NYC L train

Rehabilitation of the L train, the New York City subway line connecting the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, finished six months ahead of schedule and $100 million under budget thanks in part to Cornell engineers who drastically changed the project’s approach.

Two Cornell graduates win 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemsitry - Eric Betzig, William Moerner. Also, Stefan Hell.

Eric Betzig (Applied and Engineering Physics, Ph.D., 1988; M.S., 1985) along with William E. Moerner, (Experimental Physics, Ph.D., 1982; M.S., 1978) were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 for their groundbreaking achievements in optical microscopy where the pathways of individual molecules can be..Read More

Scientists in protective covering work together

The Cornell University Satellite, a nanosatellite designed and built by students, is launched into space. The Cornell University Satellite (CUSat) is a nanosatellite developed by Cornell University that launched on 29 September 2013. It used a new algorithm called Carrier-phase Differential GPS (CDGPS) to calibrate..Read More

David Muller and student hold glass

The world’s thinnest sheet of glass was created by David Muller, professor of Applied and Engineering Physics (M.S. 1994, Ph.D., 1996) and graduate student Pinshane Huang (M.S. 2012, Ph.D. 2014, Applied and Engineering Physics). This was the first time anyone was able to see the..Read More

Cornell Tech is born

Cornell Tech campus

Cornell University was designated by New York City to build a sustainable campus on Roosevelt Island for graduate tech education. Cornell Tech (created under Dean Lance R. Collins) is an innovative, sustainable academic campus made up of a combination of state of the art academic..Read More

Many students hold up signs with company names

The Kessler Fellows Program at Cornell Engineering was founded in 2009. This innovative and one-of-a-kind program combines an engineering degree with deep exposure to start-up culture making graduates uniquely prepared to apply to skills to new opportunities and industries.

Hacking the hackers

Todd Humphries, Paul Kintner, and Mark Psiaki

Todd E. Humphreys, (Aerospace Engineering, Ph.D., 2007); Paul Kintner and Mark Psiaki, professors of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Brent Ledvina, (Electrical Engineering, Ph.D. 2004); demonstrated the first known GPS spoofing attack, where a hacker can fool a targeted GPS receiver to misestimating its position, time..Read More

Hod Lipson and Evan Malone

The Fab@Home project launched at Cornell Engineering. Designed and produced by Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering students, this first fully open-source 3D printer in the US, helped launch the consumer 3D printing revolution. Hod Lipson and Evan Malone of the Cornell University Computational Synthesis Laboratory began..Read More

Bioprinted tissue

The first bio-printing of living tissue was achieved by Prof. Hod Lipson from Mechanical and Prof. Larry Bonassar from Biomedical engineering. The researchers printed a meniscus which lived for three months in incubation. Consequently, the field of bio-printing is launched