The Master of Engineering Program

The Master of Engineering program is a nine-month advanced engineering degree, combined with project experience in sustainable international development.

The Environmental Engineering graduate program at Cornell is designed to enable students to enhance professional skills in the areas of Environmental Fluid Mechanics & Hydrology, Environmental Processes, and Environmental & Water Resources Systems. The AguaClara Project provides a context to use those skills to create innovative designs for water treatment technologies that will help meet the millennium goal of providing safe drinking water. The program prepares students for careers in environmental engineering with an international perspective.

Program Requirements

The Environmental Engineering M.Eng degree requires a minimum of 30 credits (typically 10 courses)

15 credits in Environmental Engineering

• 6 credit Design Project (many students choose [AguaClara]
• 9 credits in supporting courses

Within Environmental Engineering, three specializations are offered:

• Environmental Processes
• Environmental Fluid Mechanics & Hydrology
• Environmental & Water Resources Systems
  The supporting courses allow further breadth or depth. It is recommended that students take courses relevant to their career goals in engineering, sciences, foreign language, and international development.

Graduate Financial Aid

Many students in the M.Eng program receive financial aid to partially offset tuition and living expenses. A competitive fellowship program offers awards covering full tuition and stipend offers awards to top-ranked students across the College of Engineering. In addition, a larger number of half-time assistantships are available to M.Eng students. Students with assistantships typically serve as graders, hold office hours, or perform other duties for 8 hours per week. Applicants wishing to apply for financial aid for the Fall semester must submit their applications by the 1st of February in the same year.

Applications are available online through the Cornell University Graduate School

Comments From Our Students

"Working on the Ojojona water treatment project this semester has been a crash course, both in terms of the breadth of material learned, and the skills aquired in working as part of a large team. The weekly meetings ... have continued to fuel my enthusiasm for this project, and my hopes for a long term greater good that can result from it." -Shada El-Sharif

"...the class work that we've done on technology and society, and working with such a dynamic and varied group of teammates has improved my understanding, but continuing to work on this project in the future, visiting Honduras, constructing the plant, and implementing the system will bring the understanding to a deeper level, probably for all of us." -Tammi Aiken, PE

Contact Information

For more information about the Master of Engineering program, please contact:

Graduate Program Coordinator
School of Civil & Environmental Engineering
Phone: 607.255.7560
Fax: 607.255.9004
Email: cee_grad@cornell.edu
221 Hollister Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853

For more information about AguaClara specifically, please contact:

Monroe Weber-Shirk
Phone: 607.255.8445
Fax: 607.255.9004
Email: mw24@cornell.edu
115 Hollister Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853