Our Story
Mindful of Our Past. Leading Toward the Future.
The Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science at Duke is a tight-knit community of students, staff and faculty inspired by a distinguished history of engineering excellence and committed to improving society by designing solutions that make the world better.
A Legacy to Live Up To
Our department was a beneficiary of the visionary estate plan of industrialist Thomas Lord (pictured) and inventor Donald M. Alstadt. Over more than 40 years, the Lord Foundation of North Carolina provided nearly $50 million in support of innovation in engineering education at Duke.
That relationship culminated in 2019 with the sale of the LORD Corporation and a historic distribution of $261 million.
Duke MEMS is proud to bear their names and to pursue the challenge of living up to the high values they placed on innovation and social responsibility.
High-Impact Research
Mechanical engineering and materials science ask big, fundamental questions. Discovering the answers opens worlds of possibility.
Our history includes decades of path-breaking research in theoretical and computational modeling of fluid flows through complex systems, with molecular-level insight. The product of that research is a human future in which innovative machines and new materials will harvest the sun’s energy more effectively and even mend broken bones.
Speaking of broken bones, our faculty researchers are also leaders in developing intelligent robotics and autonomous machines. These efforts include an NSF-sponsored graduate traineeship on the advancement of surgical technologies.
Tools of the Trade
Our community has access to an array of powerful instruments usually found only at far larger institutions—which means you won’t have to wait long to use them.
We’re particularly proud of Duke’s Shared Materials Instrumentation Facility (SMiF), which features 4,000 square feet of class 100 and class 1000 cleanroom for the fabrication of nanotechnologies.
Our students complete course work in a modern student machine shop. They pursue their inspiration in a constellation of on-campus maker spaces, including the Innovation Co-Lab, Foundry and Wilkinson Building garage labs.
All that at Duke, and we haven’t yet mentioned the subsonic wind tunnel, anechoic chamber, 3D printing in titanium …
Engineering in Service to Society
We aim to make a difference in our hometown, across our state and in our world. Duke MEMS is proud to lead programs that train inspired leaders and fill the pipeline of K-12 students choosing STEM careers.
Leveraging Duke’s proximity to the North Carolina state capital and Washington, our Engineering in Service to Society PhD Fellowships provide financial support for internships with public policy agencies and organizations.
Our outreach efforts include immersive public programs such as Girls Exploring Math (GEM) and Duke’s Summer STEM Academy.
The Time of Your Life
We’re invested in your success. From their first year, our students receive a practical and hands-on education where they learn to be thoughtful, creative and ethical engineers.
Our graduates have earned Rhodes, Fulbright, and Marshall scholarships and National Science Foundation fellowships and become leaders in the public sphere, academia and industry—working for employers such as NASA, GM, SpaceX and Tesla.
Our students literally reach for the stars — the Duke AERO Club sends rockets into the stratesphere every summer, Duke Robotics logs hours in the pool testing autonomous submarines and Duke Motorsports builds and drives a custom F1-style racecar.
Life at Duke
In a word, life at Duke is good. We’re a highly ranked engineering school in a top 10 research university with a strong liberal arts tradition. Here, you’ll find a beautiful and inspiring place to learn, teach and work.