Research expenditures at Duke Engineering exceed $88 million per year. Its faculty is highly ranked in overall research productivity among U.S. engineering schools by Academic Analytics.[2] More than 30 Duke alumni and faculty have been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering since its founding in 1964.[3]
The Pratt School of Engineering also maintains these academic departments:[4]
Biomedical Engineering
Civil & Environmental Engineering
Electrical & Computer Engineering
Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
The school was created by Duke's Board of Trustees in 1939. It was named in 1999 following a $35 million gift by Edmund T. Pratt Jr., a 1947 graduate and former chief executive of Pfizer.[5] The Duke University Pratt School of Engineering celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2014–2015.[6]
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering entered into partnership to support technological innovation in the banking and financial services sectors. According to Jimmie Lenz, director of Duke’s Master of Engineering programs in FinTech and Cybersecurity, “...This partnership highlights the dramatic changes taking place in finance, and recognition by the FDIC of the key role Duke Engineering is playing in this dynamic environment.”[10]
Doctorate
Duke's Pratt School of Engineering awards PhDs in:[11]
With Duke's School of Medicine, Duke's Department of Biomedical Engineering offers a dual MD-Master of Engineering degree program.[12] Also, medical students in Duke's MD/PhD Medical Science Training Program, can earn a doctorate in an engineering discipline in partnership with Duke's Pratt School of Engineering.[13]
More than 62 percent of all Duke engineering undergraduates report having participated in some way in research in a faculty research lab.[17]
Since July 2018, Duke engineering students have held the Guinness World Record for inventing the world's most fuel-efficient vehicle—powered by a fuel cell, it achieved 14,573 miles per gallon equivalent.[18] In 2019, Duke Engineering students earned a second Guinness World Record for the world's most efficient all-electric vehicle—797 miles per kilowatt-hour.[19]
The precursor to the school of engineering dates back to 1851, when Duke was known as Normal College and located in Randolph County, North Carolina. At that time, engineering was included in a classical course for seniors. A course in engineering was introduced in 1887, eventually becoming a regular course offering in 1903.
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At that time, engineering courses were limited to such fields as architecture and surveying until 1924, when Trinity College was renamed Duke University. Engineering was taught in the new separate departments of civil and electrical engineering. In 1931, a mechanical engineering department was created. Duke's Board of Trustees created the College of Engineering in 1939, with William H. Hall its first dean.
The College of Engineering graduated its first female graduates in 1946. The next year, the three departments moved from East Campus to West Campus. It became the Duke School of Engineering in 1966. Two years later the school's first black students graduated. The Division of Biomedical Engineering was created in 1967 — the first accredited biomedical engineering department at a U.S. university — in September 1972.[21]
In 1997, the Master of Engineering Management was established.
The school was renamed the Edmund T. Pratt Jr. School of Engineering in 1999, in honor of the 1947 graduate and former CEO of Pfizer.
Facilities
Duke Engineering occupies more than 300,000 net square feet of educational, administrative and research space on and near the Duke campus in Durham, North Carolina.[22]
The Wilkinson Building, located at Research Drive and Telcom Drive next to Bostock Library, also houses Duke Engineering's entrepreneurship initiatives.
The building's name recognizes lifetime philanthropic and service contributions of Duke Engineering alumnus Jerry C. Wilkinson and family.[25]
Hudson Hall is the oldest engineering building at Duke, constructed in 1948. It was renamed to honor Fitzgerald S. "Jerry" Hudson (E'46) in 1992.[26]
Nello L. Teer Building
The Nello L. Teer Library Building opened in 1984. Located adjacent to Hudson Hall, it is now called the Nello L. Teer Building, and houses the Dean's offices, a computinglab, a circuits lab, an auditorium and a student lounge. The building's name honors Teer, its donor and a Durham, North Carolina-based builder and philanthropist.[26]
