Department of Material Science & Engineering

What is Materials Science & Engineering?

What if you could extract silicon to build solar cells from a renewable resource like rice? Or, create lighter, yet stronger materials for automotive and aerospace applications that would decrease our consumption of fossil fuels? As our manufactured products become more complex, the demand is ever increasing for materials engineers to enable advanced technology for a sustainable future.

MSE is where engineering meets cutting-edge science. As one of the most interdisciplinary fields of engineering, the MSE curriculum builds on foundations in mathematics, chemistry, and physics, and adds specialized engineering knowledge that can be applied in many areas such as nanoengineering, biomaterials, extractive metallurgy, adaptive polymers, and forensics.

As a materials engineer, you will understand the characteristics and properties of materials, and possess the necessary skills to synthesize, process, and apply them to engineering design. Your expertise in advanced materials will enable new and sustainable technologies, creating innovative solutions for the global environment.

What You'll Learn - Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Toronto

One area of focus within the materials engineering program, is to ensure students learn about the properties and processing of materials through a combination of theoretical and real-life applications. It all starts by learning how materials are made and how they behave in different situations – their characterization, mechanical properties, high-temperature behaviour, environmental degradation, and failure analysis.

The upper years of the undergraduate program is designed with four theme areas found in Materials Science & Engineering (please see below). You may choose to specialize in one of them after Year 2, take a hybrid and combine several theme areas, or pursue a more general approach by taking courses across all four themes – the choice is yours to make. In Year 4, a research thesis and an industrial plant design project will provide you the opportunity to study materials engineering in a practical context.

As a more specialized field of engineering, the Materials Science & Engineering undergraduate program has smaller class sizes than other disciplines in the Faculty. This allows for additional opportunities to interact with your professors and other teaching staff.

First Year Curriculum

• Calculus I & II
• Linear Algebra
• Fundamentals of Computer Programming
• Introduction to Materials Science
• Engineering Strategies and Practice I & II
• Electrical Fundamentals
• Mechanics
• Physical Chemistry

Materials Science & Engineering, Undergraduate Studies Theme Areas (4)

1. Nanomaterials & Nanotechnology
2. Biomaterials & Bioengineering
3. Materials in Manufacturing
4. Materials Processing & Sustainable Development