The UCLA Samueli School of Engineering is the engineering school of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). It opened as the College of Engineering in 1945 and was renamed the School of Engineering in 1969. Since its initial enrollment of 379 students, the school has grown to approximately 6,500 students. The school offers 28 degree programs and is home to eight externally funded interdisciplinary research centers, including those in space exploration, wireless sensor systems, and nanotechnology.
History
The school was renamed for its alumnus and Professor Henry Samueli, who received his B.S. (1975), M.S. (1976), and Ph.D. (1980) in Electrical Engineering there. Samueli is co-founder, chairman, and chief technology officer of Broadcom Corporation and a philanthropist in the Orange County community. He and his wife Susan donated US$30 million to the school in 1999. It was at UCLA that Henry Nicholas and Henry Samueli met and later formed Broadcom. The school is credited as the birthplace of the Internet, where the first message was sent to a computer at Stanford University on October 29, 1969, by Professor Leonard Kleinrock and his research team at UCLA. On September 29, 2008, President George W. Bush presented the 2007 National Medal of Science to Kleinrock for "his fundamental contributions to the mathematical theory of modern data networks, and for the functional specification of packet switching, which is the foundation of Internet technology. His mentoring of generations of students has led to the commercialization of technologies that have transformed the world." Room 3420 at Boelter Hall, where the first message was sent, has been converted into The Kleinrock Internet Heritage Site and Archive (renamed KIHC – The Kleinrock Internet History Center at UCLA). UCLA conferred its first Bachelor of Science degree in engineering in 1947, its first Master of Science degree in 1948, and its first Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1950. Annual Engineering commencement ceremonies are held in June at Pauley Pavilion.
Campus
The main building is Boelter Hall (Engineering II and III), named after Llewellyn M. K. Boelter, a Mechanical Engineering professor at UC Berkeley who became the first Dean of the school. He "often took an active role in the lives of the school's students, and his approach to engineering impacted many of their careers," according to the school. He retired in 1965 and was succeeded by Chauncey Starr, a pioneer in nuclear power development. HSSEAS is housed in two other buildings: Engineering IV, and Engineering V, which houses the Department of Bioengineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Engineering I was demolished in August 2011, to be replaced by Engineering VI, which houses the Western Institute of Nanotechnology on Green Engineering and Metrology (WIN-GEM) in 2014. The ground breaking ceremony for Engineering VI building was held October 26, 2012 with Congressman Henry A. Waxman and Henry Samueli. On March 19, 2015, Engineering VI phase I was dedicated and phase II broke ground with the help of James L. Easton, class of '59 alumnus. Engineering VI was completed and opened in 2018.
Academics
Departments The Samueli School of Engineering has seven departments and one interdepartmental program, which are accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). The school offers the following degrees:
Online M.S. Degree Graduate Certificate of Specialization
Undergraduate admissions For Fall 2015 admitted students had a median weighted grade point average (GPA) of 4.5 and a median SAT score of 2190. For Fall 2019, UCLA Engineering received 25,804 freshman applications and admitted 2,505 for an admission rate of 9.7%. For Fall 2020, UCLA Engineering received 24,039 freshman applications and admitted 2,640 for an admission rate of 11.0%. For Fall 2022, admitted students had a median unweighted grade point average (GPA) of 4.00, a median weighted GPA of 4.59, and a median SAT score of 1540. For Fall 2024, UCLA Engineering received 35,057 freshman applications and admitted 1,875 for an admission rate of 5.3%.
People
Alumni Winners of the UCLA Engineering Alumni of the Year award
Allen Adham ’90: co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment Michael Morhaime ’90: co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment Frank Pearce ’90: co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment James Collins ’50: founder of Sizzler Chris “Jesus” Ferguson ’86, Ph.D. ’99: professional poker player Klein Gilhousen ’69: co-inventor of CDMA technology and co-founder of Qualcomm Blake Krikorian ’90: founder of Sling Media K. Megan McArthur, ’93: NASA astronaut James D. Plummer ’66, M.S. ’67, Ph.D. ’71: Dean of Stanford University School of Engineering
List of deans Llewellyn M.K. Boelter, 1944-1965 Chauncey Starr, 1967–1973 Russell R. O'Neill, 1974–1983 George L. Turin, 1983–1986 A.R. Frank Wazzan, 1986–2001 Vijay K. Dhir, 2003–2015 Jayathi Murthy, 2016–2022 Bruce Dunn, 2022–2023 (interim) Ah-Hyung "Alissa" Park, 2023–present
Faculty Faculty members: 164 National Academy of Engineering members: 28 Faculty distinctions:
See also History of the Internet University of California, Los Angeles
References
External links UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science KIHC – The Kleinrock Internet History Center at UCLA Enrollment and Degree Statistics Samueli's biography at the UCLA Department of Electrical Engineering The Samueli Foundation The first Internet connection, with UCLA's Leonard Kleinrock on YouTube
