Automotive Engineering
Department of Mechanical Engineering
It is my distinct pleasure to head the inaugural team of engineers at Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Graduate Engineering Center (CGEC) at the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR). Our faculty team of world class engineers has developed a first class research and educational program in Automotive Engineering focusing on the vehicle from a systems integration perspective. Under the rubric of systems integration, we will focus our education and research programs on product design and development, manufacturing and electronic systems.
The
CU-ICAR campus is a 250+ acre research campus situated in close proximity
to a number of our partners’ research and development facilities,
as well as their production facilities. The CGEC is
a 90,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility housing a set of automotive
testing resources valued at over $10 million. These facilities will be
employed to provide our graduate students with the best possible educational
experience as they prepare for international internships, and ultimately,
careers in the automotive sector (OEM and suppliers). The facilities will
also be used to conduct advanced research and development in automotive
engineering in conjunction with our partners.
Graduates of our program will not only receive first class technical training from our faculty and industrial experts, but they will also be educated in management, business and policy issues that are critical in modern global corporate operations. The automotive sector is important to our global economy, with new vehicles accounting for an international annual market of over $1.5 trillion. Furthermore, the automobile impacts our world from many aspects including energy, emissions and safety, not to mention the excitement generated by the sheer performance of a state-of-the-art vehicle. All of these characteristics, and more, make automotive engineering an exciting and fertile field for the future. I encourage you to look over our team and capabilities, and to learn more about Automotive Engineering at Clemson University. The future in the automotive sector is very bright, and we along with our partners and alumni, will be driving it!
Dr. Thomas R. Kurfess
Professor &
BMW Chair in Manufacturing
Director, Campbell Graduate Engineering Center