Brandeis Alumni, Family and Friends
Engineering at Brandeis
Descriptive Transcript
Text on screen reads: “Introducing a new interdisciplinary Engineering Program at Brandeis”
Sweeping aerial view of Brandeis campus.
Recordings of scientific research slides appear on a black screen, consisting of two boxes containing white fiber-like objects which move and twist around each other.
Seth Fraden is seated in a room filled with 3D printers and other machinery. He says, “Every department at Brandeis touches upon engineering in their research and we are nationally competitive in many of those fields. It’s logical to have a disciplinary program for formal training in order to integrate all these different efforts going throughout the university.”
Close-up view of a 3D printer at work.
Students discuss and work together in a classroom.
Avi Rodal is seated in a room with a large 3D printer behind her. She says, “It’s really important that our education programs integrate really well with the research that we already have going on at Brandeis.”
Visualization of bioinspired soft materials, spinning around over a white background.
A person spins around inside a flight simulation seat.
Avi Rodal says, “We have just fantastic, world-class research in the Life Sciences, in Materials Science, and so we’re hoping to create this new cohort of Brandeis students who really have the tools and skills to go out and make technological innovations in the world.”
A student edits a design on a laptop. They open up a laser cutting machine and slip a sheet of plywood into it.
Three students sit together on a couch. Gred Roitbourd ‘26, seated center, says “This class embodies the concept of STEAM in the best way possible, because we get to do what we want to do with the resources that we have. Having this as like, the pilot course for the engineering program is like, kind of like step-forward, and it allows the program to grow.”
Students work on their design projects in the engineering classroom.
A 3Dprinter builds a gear-shaped print out of white filament.
Avi Rodal says, “Rather than having a whole new engineering school or an engineering department, which silos engineers off into a domain of their own, we're going to take those engineers and embed them into our existing science departments, where we're doing this fantastic research.”
A sweeping aerial view of Brandeis campus.
Students discuss their projects with each other.
Close-up view of a large 3D printer at work.
Students work together to assemble a 3D-printed prosthetic hand.
Students examine a 3D-printed modular urban map.
Ian Roy gives a lecture during class.
Avi Rodal says, “But at the same time, those undergraduates are going to be embedded in a liberal arts environment, and incorporate research projects and attack societal problems, really focusing on evidence-based social benefit and context derived from all of our teaching and scholarship and education in social sciences, humanities and creative arts, and business, to have students with the identity of engineers working in this liberal arts and societal context.”
Ian Roy is seated in a room with various large machinery behind him. He says, “So when we thought about the big problems in the world and things Brandeis is good at, we came up with this umbrella of, “design to repair the world”. So we’re using these tools to leave the world better than we found it.”
Students discuss their projects with each other.
Students examine the progress on a 3D printer.
Ian Roy says, “And really, we don’t know what problems these cohorts of students are going to tackle, so a lot of the methodology is ‘what do we do when we don’t know what to do?’”
Avi Rodal says, “And so rather than trying to cover specific engineering disciplines like mechanical engineering and civil engineering, our goal is to take our students and give them a foundation in engineering thinking and design and practice.”
Timelapse of a 3D printer creating a purple object from start to finish.
A pair of hands makes repairs to the nozzle of a 3D printer.
A laser cutter operates on a sheet of plywood.
Seth Fraden says, “The engineering mindset is to find solutions to problems, and so I’d like to see this realized throughout the departments.”
Students brainstorm ideas at a whiteboard.
Students examine and weigh components of an object they are assembling.
Seth Fraden says, “I’d like to see students in business learn how to create companies and to put them in practice. I’d like to see scientists think about how to build technologies as a bridge to society.”
Ian Roy says, “I think with the link to the foundational science breakthroughs on campus, the entrepreneurial system in the Business School, the big problems in social policy around the Heller School, and this new Engineering Science Program, there’s a potential to really change the world and really have Brandeis students lead with their hearts, but then build things with their hands and minds.”
Students discuss their projects with each other.
Students pick up pieces of something from the floor while laughing together.
Sweeping aerial shot of Brandeis campus.
A person is strapped into the flight simulation chair by a researcher.
Graphic of colorful visualizations of research being done at Brandeis.
Avi Rodal says, “We’re a small community of people who know each other very well, and these kinds of spontaneous interactions are what lead to amazing breakthroughs, so we think that Brandeis presents a really unique environment.”
Gred Roitbourd holds up an object to the camera while smiling.
Ifigenia Oxyzolou ‘26 says “And I think what’s particularly amazing about Brandeis is that we’re a small liberal arts college, so you can kind of do a little bit of everything. And it’s part of why I chose to not go to an engineering school, and come to a school like this.”
Ifigenia Oxyzolou talks with Greg Roitbourd about their design project.
Text on screen reads “Learn more: Brandeis.edu/Engineering”