The Cornell David A. Duffield College of Engineering is the engineering school of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, United States. Engineering instruction at Cornell dates to the university's founding in 1868; the university's separate engineering colleges, including the Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanic Arts and the College of Civil Engineering, merged in 1919 to form the College of Engineering. In January 2026, the college was renamed in recognition of a cumulative $520 million in gifts to the college from alumnus David A. Duffield ('62, MBA '64), including a $371.5 million pledge that was, at the time, the largest single gift in Cornell University's history; Duffield's total giving across all of Cornell exceeds $550 million. It currently grants bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in a variety of engineering and applied science fields.
History
Instruction in mechanical and civil engineering began when Cornell University opened its doors in 1868. In 1870, Hiram Sibley's gift funded the establishment of the Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanic Arts, one of two predecessor engineering units alongside the College of Civil Engineering; the two merged in 1919 to form the College of Engineering. Early programs were housed in Sibley, Lincoln, Franklin, Rand, and Morse Halls.
According to the college's history, Cornell established one of the earliest academic programs in electrical engineering in the United States in 1883 and produced the nation's first electrical engineering graduates in 1885, the same year the Department of Electrical Engineering was established.
On January 22, 2026, Cornell University announced that the College of Engineering would be renamed the Cornell David A. Duffield College of Engineering in recognition of alumnus David A. Duffield's (B.S. 1962; MBA 1964) cumulative $520 million in gifts to the college. The renaming followed a $371.5 million pledge that was, at the time, the largest single gift in Cornell University's history; Duffield's total giving across all of Cornell, including gifts to the College of Veterinary Medicine, exceeds $550 million.
Departments
Aerial photo of the Cornell Duffield Engineering quad, featuring Duffield Hall.
Cornell Duffield Engineering comprises 14 academic departments and department-level schools:
School of Applied and Engineering Physics
Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering
Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering
Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Department of Computer Science
Department of Design Tech
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Engineering Management Program
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
School of Operations Research and Information Engineering
Systems Engineering Program
The Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (originally known as the Sibley College of the Mechanic Arts, and located in East Sibley Hall) awarded its first four-year Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree in 1874.
The Joseph N. Pew, Jr. Engineering Quad was designed in the 1940s and 1950s on a site previously occupied by the Old Armory and faculty housing, using a master plan developed by the Perkins and Will firm. The quad is named for Joseph N. Pew Jr. (Mechanical Engineering, B.S. 1908), later an industrialist and philanthropist. It has undergone major changes in recent years, particularly with the completion of Duffield Hall. In 2004, relandscaping with a design inspired by Cascadilla Gorge was completed and the quad's landmark sundial, designed by Cornell President Emeritus Dale Corson, was restored to its place on the quad.
Duffield Hall, which houses research and teaching facilities for nanoscale science and engineering, is connected by an atrium to Upson Hall; as of 2026, Duffield Hall is undergoing a further expansion that will absorb the adjacent Phillips Hall, with the Phillips family's consent to retire the separate "Phillips Hall" name in favor of a "Phillips Auditorium" within the expanded building. Connected to Upson Hall, away from the quad, are Grumman Hall (1957) and Frank H. T. Rhodes Hall (1990), which houses the Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing (formerly the Cornell Theory Center).[citation needed]
On the southern end of the quad, next to Upson Hall and near Cascadilla Creek, are Kimball Hall, Tang Hall (formerly Thurston Hall, expanded and renamed in 2023–2024 in recognition of a gift from Martin Y. and Margaret Lee Tang), and Bard Hall, all part of a single brick and concrete structure. Bard Hall is home to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Next to Bard, and across from the Cornell Law School, stand Snee Hall and Hollister Hall, home to the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Between Upson and Kimball stands Ward Hall (1963); its nuclear reactor was decommissioned in 2001, but the building itself remains in active use. Today it houses offices for the college's marketing and communications staff, facilities staff, and the '''New York Consortium for Space Technology (NYCST)''', a Cornell-led space-technology research consortium funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, whose test facilities include a high-bay spacecraft simulation lab in the building. Carpenter Hall (1956), containing the Engineering Library, stands next to Hollister. Across Campus Road is Franklin W. Olin Jr. Hall (1942), home of the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Research
Duffield Engineering operates several major shared research facilities, including the '''Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility (CNF)''', a National Science Foundation–supported nanofabrication user facility established in 1977 and housed in Duffield Hall, which serves several hundred academic and industry users annually.
Notable research originating from the college includes:
The Fab@Home project (2006), one of the first two fully open-source DIY 3D printers (alongside RepRap).
The "Cornell Ranger", a four-legged robot developed in the Biorobotics and Locomotion Laboratory under professor Andy Ruina, which set an unofficial world distance record for an untethered walking robot, traveling 14.3 miles (23 km) on a single battery charge in July 2010, following an earlier record of 5.6 miles set in 2008.
Early bio-printing of living tissue: in 2006, Hod Lipson (then a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) and Lawrence Bonassar (Biomedical Engineering) reported one of the first uses of freeform fabrication to print seeded alginate hydrogels, including meniscus-shaped constructs, in a peer-reviewed study.
Notable people
Alumni
David A. Duffield (B.E.E. 1962, MBA 1964) – co-founder of PeopleSoft and Workday; namesake of the college.
Bill Nye (B.S. Mechanical Engineering, 1977) – science communicator, television personality.
Robert F. Smith (B.S. Chemical Engineering, 1985) – founder and CEO of Vista Equity Partners; namesake of the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Irwin M. Jacobs (B.E.E. 1954, M.S. 1956) – co-founder of Qualcomm; pioneer of CDMA wireless technology.
Dale R. Corson – physicist, later Cornell University president; designed the Pew Engineering Quad sundial.
Juris Hartmanis – founding chair of Cornell's Department of Computer Science, which was jointly housed in the College of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences at its 1965 founding; 1993 Turing Award laureate.
Robert C. Richardson – professor of Applied and Engineering Physics; 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Solomon C. Hollister – Dean of the College of Engineering, 1937–1959; namesake of Hollister Hall.
Michal Lipson – professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2001–2015; MacArthur Fellow (2010).
Lynden A. Archer – Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering, 2020–present.
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