The University of Texas at Austin, a leading Hispanic-serving institution, has announced a new approach to training civil, architectural, and environmental engineering students.
The leadership and service required to solve global challenges will be emphasized in the future.
The Cockrell School of Engineering’s Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering is one of the largest in the U.S.
Its undergraduate and graduate programs are ranked in the top 10 in the U.S. and graduate 250 and 100 students yearly.
After a significant investment, the department has been renamed the Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering.
UT President Jay Hartzell said, “Technical expertise and leadership will be required for our cities and broader society to thrive. Fariborz recognizes the role of talented engineers in tackling the biggest issues we face. This monumental investment will enable one of the nation’s top-ranked departments that propelled Fariborz’s success to educate future leaders and pioneers who will design and shape the cities and environment of our future.”
Roger Bonnecaze, dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering, said Maseeh’s support will help the department reshape its curriculum and advance its research to prepare students better to partner with the community-based people and institutions who deal with global challenges firsthand.
As a teenager, Maseeh immigrated to the United States and earned a master’s degree in civil engineering at UT and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the managing principal at Surlamer Investments and The Massiah Foundation. He founded a microelectromechanical systems company, which was acquired by Corning in 2000. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2023 for his advancements in efficient design, development of microelectromechanical systems, and public service.
Maseeh believes that engineering is in an era of “tiny things,” characterized by rapid growth in semiconducting, artificial intelligence, and microprocessing.
The next era will require big-picture thinking to meet complex, decades-long problems — including the nexus of cities, water, and energy.
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