The mission of the Department of Civil Engineering is to provide high-quality learning experiences for students and lifelong education for practicing professions, and to develop and disseminate new knowledge to meet the engineering and construction needs of New Mexico, the nation and the world. Areas of interest include the design of buildings, roads and bridges; theory of traffic flow, microbiology, earth physics; the stresses and strains induced in structures; the safety of transportation systems; the problems of air and water pollution, and the effects of earthquakes on structures.
All our faculty are licensed professional engineers. Many have extensive working experience outside academia; yet all have degrees from leading universities. This results in a curriculum that balances fundamental engineering concepts with real-world practical knowledge that no other program can offer. UNM CE students taking the national Fundamental Exam consistently pass at a rate above the national average, a testimony to a solid education. CE classes often have less than 12 or 15 students. All classes are taught by professors or highly qualified adjuncts, not teaching assistants. Our program is student-oriented, with superb faculty-student interaction and lots of individual attention.
CE has well-equipped structural, geotechnical, hydraulic and environmental labs, as well as great student computing resources and a research site on the banks of the Rio Grande. CE has close relations with other departments on campus as well as the Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs, which provides great access to high tech resources, funding opportunities and exciting research projects. As a Carnegie Doctoral/Research-Extensive University, UNM competes with the best universities in America. As a minority-serving institution, UNM often has special funding opportunities...and CE awards more student scholarship dollars than any other department in the School of Engineering.