A Message from the Director

 

Welcome to SF State’s School of Engineering website! I hope you and your family are well.

 

The School of Engineering has been serving the San Francisco Bay Area industry since 1959. Today, it remains the only accredited four-year engineering school in San Francisco and is currently ranked #49 (82nd percentile) on the US News and World Report’s Best Undergraduate Engineering Program (No Doctorate) Ranking. We pride ourselves in offering four ABET-accredited undergraduate engineering programs: civil engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. As well as three master’s programs in civil engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and mechanical engineering. In addition, we have established four accelerated BS/MS programs, or SF State Scholars Programs, where students can complete their BS and MS degrees in 5~5.5 years. Together, these programs serve a highly diverse student body of 1,150 undergraduates and 100 graduate students, of which 43% are underrepresented minorities and 16.3% are female students. The majority of our graduates enter the workforce right after graduation and they are the driving forces in a myriad of industries in the San Francisco Bay Area and throughout California. Our alumni are not just technologists, but everyday heroes – from company CEO to environmental ecopreneur to Tesla engineer-turned-housing activist – who are tackling challenges in different domains and changing the world through their unique ingenuities.

 

The School currently has 25 tenured/tenure-track faculty and over 30 lecturer faculty in all four disciplines—and we expect to add two more tenure-track faculty in 2024! Our ethnically diverse and award-winning faculty features some of the best and brightest engineering educators and extraordinary role models dedicated to inspiring young minds and transforming engineering education. Among these faculty members are recipients of two National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Awards, multiple NSF and National Institute of Health (NIH) grants, Department of Energy grants, Air Force Research Laboratory grants, California State University (CSU) Faculty Innovation and Leadership Award, Sony Grand Prize, Synopsis Charles Babbage Grant, Google Faculty-in-Residence award, and American Chemical Society PRF grant. A good number of our lecturer faculty are technology entrepreneurs, senior technical and management staff at high-tech companies, and senior members of local government agencies. Indeed, just in 2023 alone, our faculty (1) secured a $3.75M award from the Department of Energy to establish a Western IAC Center of Excellence, (2) received a $500K National Science Foundation CAREER award to study green infrastructure, (3) are recognized by companies including Synopsis, Sony, Keysight Technologies, and Instron with research and instrument grants amounting to $400K, and (4) won the SF State’s 2023 Excellence in Teaching (Lecturer) Award. Our faculty size may be small, but we pack a punch.

 

As we speak, an exciting horizon is unfolding for the School of Engineering – we are moving into the new $150M, state-of-the-art Science and Engineering Innovation Center in January 2024. Our new home will house 10 modern teaching labs, 7 shared research labs, 3 major facilities (including a strong wall and strong floor, an engine room, an HVAC training system, and a wind tunnel), 2 studio-style maker spaces, 1 student-training machine shop, computer labs, student spaces, and offices. These labs will provide hands-on, design-focused, and project-based education in robotics and mechatronics, edge computing and embedded systems, structural and seismic engineering, renewable energy systems, green materials technology, analog and digital electronics, power electronics, geotechnical engineering, design and manufacturing, and biomedical devices engineering. I am confident that when the new building opens in early 2024, it will allow our faculty and staff to bring our students’ educational experience to the next level.

 

Thank you for visiting SF State’s School of Engineering. Please join me in shaping the future of Engineering and STEM education by sharing your thoughts and ideas. By working together, we can change the world. Go Gators!

 

Kwok Siong Teh, Ph.D.

Professor and Director
School of Engineering
San Francisco State University

Contact: ksteh@sfsu.edu