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UCF’s Aerospace Engineering Graduate Program Ranks No. 53 Nationally in its First Year Offering Ph.D.

By: Kimberly J. Lewis | April 2, 2020

All engineering graduate programs at the University of Central Florida eligible for ranking have retained their top 100 spots in U.S. News & World Report’s recently-published Best Graduate Schools 2021 guide.

Also, UCF’s aerospace engineering program debuted in the rankings at No. 53 in less than one year after UCF launched its aerospace engineering doctoral program. The Ph.D. program began in August 2019, adding to UCF’s master’s degree program in aerospace engineering.

University-wide, U.S. News & World Report ranked 27 UCF graduate programs in the top 100 of their fields nationally in its 2021 Best Graduate Schools rankings. The publication weighs more than 800 institutions based on peer and expert opinions about the quality of programs and statistical data that measures the quality of a school’s faculty, research and students.

The College of Engineering and Computer Science ranked No. 74, advancing one spot from last year.

Engineering dominated UCF’s list of top-100 individually-ranked programs. The 2021 rankings for UCF’s engineering and computer science graduate programs are:

  • Industrial/Manufacturing/Systems Engineering (No. 41)
  • Aerospace Engineering (No. 53)
  • Materials Science and Engineering (No. 54)
  • Electrical/Electronic/Communications Engineering (No. 58)
  • Computer Engineering (No. 61)
  • Environmental Engineering (No. 68)
  • Mechanical Engineering (No. 70)
  • Civil Engineering (No. 75)
  • Computer Science (No. 82)*

“Our graduate programs continue to garner strong positive attention nationally and internationally,” said Ali Gordon, associate dean for graduate affairs in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. “These gains in prominence are outcomes of the collective efforts of our world-class faculty and staff, and of our college’s alumni, benefactors, and partners.”

“UCF’s strong debut in the graduate aerospace engineering rankings speaks volumes of the caliber of our graduate students, faculty and the excellent aerospace research we have been building up here at UCF,” said Associate Prof. Seetha Raghavan, aerospace engineering graduate program director. “Our new Aerospace PhD program is in the best place to catch the wave of research and development in the aeronautical and space industry as it booms in Florida. For us, the trajectory is clearly upward.”

UCF’s futuristic research centers and clusters where graduate students work alongside faculty – such as Cyber Security and Privacy and Future City Initiative – help faculty win highly competitive research grants and provide students with high-impact laboratory and classroom experiences, according to Gordon.

“UCF ranks first in Florida and third in the nation for the number of National Science Foundation CAREER awards in 2020,” Gordon said. “These types of awards allow our faculty to present research challenges to our graduate students that have far-reaching societal impact.”

UCF’s highest-ranking program at No. 2 in the nation, Emergency and Crisis Management, offered by the College of Community Innovation and Education, jumped five spots from last year’s No. 7 ranking.

To read the full list of UCF’s rankings, see UCF Today’s news story: UCF Emergency Management, Nonprofit Management Rank Among Top 5 in Nation.

*U.S. News & World Report includes computer science in its science program rankings which were not ranked for 2021. UCF’s No. 82 spot for computer science is the most recent ranking.