Message from the Head
The Department of Mechanical Engineering is situated on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. We are deeply appreciative to be able to work, learn, play, and live on these lands, and we thank the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, as the traditional caretakers of this land, for the opportunity to do so.
The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of British Columbia is home to cutting-edge research programs and truly outstanding undergraduate and graduate education. Our researchers work to solve important societal problems, including the clean energy transition and air pollution; reducing human impact on the marine environment while enhancing Canada’s economic benefits from the oceans; improving health outcomes through design of better medical devices; and design and manufacturing of products with reduced resource and energy requirements. Many of our faculty have received national and international recognition for their research work. Collectively, we oversee the work of approximately 200 research-oriented graduate students, post-doctoral researchers and research engineers, with a total annual research budget of over $8 million Canadian.
We are equally proud of the outstanding education we provide to our students. Undergraduate students entering our department in second year experience a unique, cross-disciplinary approach to mechanical engineering education, our award-winning Mech 2 program, soon to celebrate its 20th anniversary. In upper years, our students have the flexibility to choose as many as seven technical electives from across the breadth of mechanical engineering. Many of our students choose to specialize by joining one of our undergraduate options in aerospace; energy and the environment; biomechanics and medical devices; mechatronics (an award-winning program in its own right); or naval architecture. These options offer in-depth study through a curated selection of technical electives. We value quality instruction in our department: a third of current faculty have won the prestigious UBC Killam Teaching Prize, and four of the 21 winners of the provincial Engineering and Geoscience Education Award are current faculty in our department.
Our faculty, staff, and students come to UBC from around the world, finding Vancouver to be a beautiful, friendly, welcoming city, with lots of opportunities for leisure activities, both in the city itself and in the mountains and ocean that surround us here. We pride ourselves on being a welcoming, inclusive community, and we welcome inquiries and applications from anyone wishing to join us, whether as a student, a staff member, or a faculty member.
Carl Ollivier-Gooch, PhD, PEng
Professor and Head, pro tem
Phone: 1-604-822-1854