Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics, MSE
The master's degree program in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM) is innovative, unique, and nationally recognized for its excellence. We are at the forefront in preparing students for leadership careers by providing opportunities to work in emerging and interdisciplinary areas that are fueling exciting advances in technology. The program can be tailored and customized to meet individual needs under the guidance and approval of an academic advisor. Students can choose a course of study in one of five concentrations:
- Design and Manufacturing
- Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics, and Energy
- Mechanics of Materials
- Mechatronic and Robotic Systems
- Micro/Nano Systems
For more information: https://www.me.upenn.edu/masters/
The degree and major requirements displayed are intended as a guide for students entering in the Fall of 2026 and later. Students should consult with their academic program regarding final certifications and requirements for graduation.
Curriculum
| Code | Title | Course Units |
|---|---|---|
| Engineering Math | ||
| Select 2 Engineering Math options from the following: | 2 | |
Any 5000+ level ENM courses | ||
| Numerical Methods and Modeling | ||
| Introduction to Probability and Statistics | ||
| Foundations of Engineering Mathematics - I | ||
| Foundations of Engineering Mathematics - II | ||
| Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos | ||
| Principles and Techniques of Applied Math I | ||
| Principles and Techniques of Applied Math II | ||
| Numerical Methods for PDEs | ||
| Data-driven Modeling and Probabilistic Scientific Computing | ||
| Physical structure-preservation & advanced computational techniques for scientific machine learning | ||
| Topics In Computational Science and Engineering | ||
| Mathematics for Robotics | ||
| Machine Learning | ||
| Finite Element Analysis | ||
| MEAM Concentration Core 1 | ||
| Select 1 Required Concentration Core course | 1 | |
| Select 2 Concentration Core courses | 2 | |
| MEAM Electives 2 | ||
| Select 2 5000+ Level MEAM Courses | 2 | |
| General Electives 3 | ||
| Select 3 5000+ Level Courses | 3 | |
| Seminar Requirement | ||
2 Semesters of MEAM Seminar 4 | ||
| MEAM Seminar | ||
| MEAM Seminar | ||
or EAS 8960 | Professional Master's Career Development | |
| Total Course Units | 10 | |
- 1
Please go to the Concentrations tab for the lists of courses for each Concentration Core.
- 2
Exception: MEAM 5990: Independent Study may not count towards the MEAM Electives requirement. MEAM 5990 may only count towards the General Electives requirement.
- 3
Students may take any 5000+ level courses that contribute to their degree program and career goals. Please go to the Concentrations tab for the lists of pre-approved, suggested courses for each concentration. Students should consult their faculty advisors for approval of any course outside of the pre-approved, suggested list.
- 4
Students may take EAS 8960 to substitute one semester of MEAM 6990.
Concentration Core Course Lists
Design and Manufacturing
| Code | Title | Course Units |
|---|---|---|
| Concentration Core | ||
| Concentration Required Course: | 1 | |
| Design for Manufacturability | ||
| Select 2 course units in: | 2 | |
| Tribology | ||
| Failure Analysis of Engineering Materials | ||
| Materials and Manufacturing for Mechanical Design | ||
| Design of Mechatronic Systems | ||
| Advanced Mechatronic Reactive Spaces. | ||
| Finite Element Analysis | ||
| Nanotribology | ||
| Performance, Stability and Control of UAVs | ||
| Design of Microelectromechanical Systems | ||
| Suggested General electives | 3 | |
| Students may take any 3 graduate level CUs that contribute to their degree program. In addition to more MEAM courses, students in the Design and Manufacturing concentration are pre-approved to count any of the following courses as General Electives. Students should consult their faculty advisor for approval of courses outside of this list. | ||
| Furniture Design Strategic Process | ||
| Interactive Computer Graphics | ||
| Intellectual Property and Business Law for Engineers | ||
| Engineering Negotiation | ||
| Engineering Entrepreneurship I | ||
| Engineering Entrepreneurship II | ||
| Foundations of Leadership | ||
| Nanofabrication and Nanocharacterization | ||
| Integrated Computer-Aided Design, Manufacturing and Analysis | ||
| Rehab Engineering and Design | ||
| Needfinding | ||
| Fabrication Studio I | ||
| Product Design | ||
| Ergonomics/Human Factors Based Product Design | ||
| Industrial Design I | ||
| LLMs for UX Prototyping. Using Natural Language AI to Design and Prototype with Code. | ||
| Escape the Algorithm | ||
Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics, and Energy
| Code | Title | Course Units |
|---|---|---|
| Concentration Core | ||
| Concentration Required Course: | 1 | |
| Viscous Fluid Flow and Modern Applications | ||
or MEAM 5700 | Transport Processes I | |
| Select 2 course units in: | 2 | |
| Energy Engineering in Power Plants and Transportation Systems | ||
| Direct Energy Conversion: from Macro to Nano | ||
| Tribology | ||
| Biomedical Microsystems | ||
| Finite Element Analysis | ||
| Continuum Mechanics | ||
| Viscous Fluid Flow and Modern Applications | ||
| Turbulence | ||
| Aerodynamics | ||
| Hovering Vehicle Design and Analysis Techniques | ||
| Wind Physics and Applications | ||
| Order-of-magnitude estimation for terrestrial and space engineering | ||
| Thermodynamics: Foundations, Energy, Materials | ||
| Water Treatment Engineering | ||
| Transport Processes I | ||
| Advanced Topics in Transport Phenomena | ||
| Micro and Nano Fluidics | ||
| Electrochemistry for Energy, Nanofabrication and Sensing | ||
| Advanced Fluid Mechanics | ||
| Computational Mechanics | ||
| Advanced Molecular Thermodynamics | ||
| Advanced Topics in Thermal Fluid Science or Energy | ||
| Suggested General Electives | 3 | |
| Students may take any 3 graduate level CUs that contribute to their degree program. In addition to more MEAM courses, students in the Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics, and Energy concentration are pre-approved to count any of the following courses as General Electives. Students should consult their faculty advisor for approval of courses outside of this list. | ||
| Carbon Capture | ||
| Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage | ||
| Fundamentals of Industrial Catalytic Processes | ||
| Advanced Molecular Thermodynamics | ||
| Transport Processes I | ||
| Energy and its Impacts: Technology, Environment, Economics, Sustainability. | ||
| Renewable Energy and Its Impacts: Technology, Environment, Economics, Sustainability | ||
| Intellectual Property and Business Law for Engineers | ||
| Engineering Negotiation | ||
| Engineering Entrepreneurship I | ||
| Engineering Entrepreneurship II | ||
| Foundations of Leadership | ||
| Nanoscale Science and Engineering | ||
| Materials for Energy and Environmental Sustainability | ||
| Electrochemical Engineering of Materials | ||
Mechanics of Materials
| Code | Title | Course Units |
|---|---|---|
| Concentration Core | ||
| Concentration Required Course: | 1 | |
| Elasticity and Micromechanics of Materials | ||
| Select 2 course units in: | 2 | |
| Tribology | ||
| Mechanical Properties of Macro/Nanoscale Materials | ||
| Failure Analysis of Engineering Materials | ||
| Fundamentals of Materials | ||
| Materials and Manufacturing for Mechanical Design | ||
| Finite Element Analysis | ||
| Continuum Mechanics | ||
| Nanotribology | ||
| Design of Microelectromechanical Systems | ||
| Atomic Modeling in Materials Science | ||
| Nanoscale Systems Biology | ||
| Transport Processes I | ||
| Plasticity | ||
| Mechanics of Adhesion and Fracture | ||
| Rods and Shells | ||
| Composite Materials | ||
| Mechanics of Macromolecules | ||
| Multiscale Modeling for Non-Equilibrium Material Behavior | ||
| Special Topics in Mechanics of Materials | ||
| Suggested General Electives: | 3 | |
| Students may take any 3 graduate level CUs that contribute to their degree program. In addition to more MEAM courses, students in the Mechanics of Materials concentration are pre-approved to count any of the following courses as General Electives. Students should consult their faculty advisor for approval of courses outside of this list. | ||
| Continuum Tissue Mechanics | ||
| Intellectual Property and Business Law for Engineers | ||
| Engineering Negotiation | ||
| Engineering Entrepreneurship I | ||
| Engineering Entrepreneurship II | ||
| Foundations of Leadership | ||
| Integrated Computer-Aided Design, Manufacturing and Analysis | ||
| Product Design | ||
| Sustainability of Materials | ||
Mechatronic and Robotic Systems
| Code | Title | Course Units |
|---|---|---|
| Concentration Core | ||
| Concentration Required Course: | 1 | |
| Design of Mechatronic Systems | ||
| Select 2 course units: | 2 | |
| Feedback Control Design and Analysis | ||
| Advanced Mechatronic Reactive Spaces. | ||
| Control and Optimization with Applications in Robotics | ||
| Introduction to Robotics | ||
| Control Systems for Robotics | ||
| Introduction to Micro- and Nano-electromechanical Technologies | ||
| Advanced Dynamics | ||
| Performance, Stability and Control of UAVs | ||
| Hovering Vehicle Design and Analysis Techniques | ||
| Design of Microelectromechanical Systems | ||
| Non-Linear Control Theory | ||
| Advanced Robotics | ||
| Learning and Control for Adaptive and Reactive Robots | ||
| Distributed Robotics | ||
| Topics in Mechanical Systems | ||
| Suggested General Electives | 3 | |
| Students may take any 3 graduate level CUs that contribute to their degree program. In addition to more MEAM courses, students in the Mechatronic and Robotic Systems concentration are pre-approved to count any of the following courses as General Electives. Students should consult their faculty advisor for approval of courses outside of this list. | ||
| Machine Learning | ||
| Artificial Intelligence | ||
| Principles of Embedded Computation | ||
| Machine Perception | ||
| Computer Vision & Computational Photography | ||
| Programming Languages and Techniques | ||
| Intellectual Property and Business Law for Engineers | ||
| Engineering Negotiation | ||
| Engineering Entrepreneurship I | ||
| Engineering Entrepreneurship II | ||
| Foundations of Leadership | ||
| Linear Systems Theory | ||
| Introduction to Optimization Theory | ||
| Smart Devices | ||
| Digital Signal Processing | ||
| Human Systems Engineering | ||
| Modern Convex Optimization | ||
| RoboRacer Autonomous Racing Cars | ||
| Learning in Robotics | ||
| Integrated Computer-Aided Design, Manufacturing and Analysis | ||
| LLMs for UX Prototyping. Using Natural Language AI to Design and Prototype with Code. | ||
| Escape the Algorithm | ||
Micro/Nano Systems
| Code | Title | Course Units |
|---|---|---|
| Concentration Core | ||
| Concentration Required Course: | 1 | |
| Nanotribology | ||
or MEAM 5290 | Introduction to Micro- and Nano-electromechanical Technologies | |
| Select 2 course units in: | 2 | |
| Mechanical Properties of Macro/Nanoscale Materials | ||
| Fundamentals of Materials | ||
| Biomedical Microsystems | ||
| Elasticity and Micromechanics of Materials | ||
| Finite Element Analysis | ||
| Introduction to Micro- and Nano-electromechanical Technologies | ||
| Nanotribology | ||
| Design of Microelectromechanical Systems | ||
| Atomic Modeling in Materials Science | ||
| Nanoscale Systems Biology | ||
| Micro and Nano Fluidics | ||
| Electrochemistry for Energy, Nanofabrication and Sensing | ||
| Suggested General Electives | 3 | |
| Students may take any 3 graduate level CUs that contribute to their degree program. In addition to more MEAM courses, students in the Micro/Nano Systems concentration are pre-approved to count any of the following courses as General Electives. Students should consult their faculty advisor for approval of courses outside of this list. | ||
| Intellectual Property and Business Law for Engineers | ||
| Engineering Negotiation | ||
| Engineering Entrepreneurship I | ||
| Engineering Entrepreneurship II | ||
| Foundations of Leadership | ||
| The Physics of Solid State Energy Devices | ||
| Nanofabrication and Nanocharacterization | ||
| Structure of Materials | ||
| Nanoscale Science and Engineering | ||
| Fabrication and Characterization of Micro and Nanostructured Materials | ||
| Code | Title | Course Units |
|---|---|---|
| First Year | ||
| Fall | 3 | |
3 CU's combination of Engineering Math and Concentration Core courses | ||
| MEAM Seminar | ||
| Spring | 3 | |
3 CUs: combination of Engineering Math, Concentration Core, MEAM Elective, or General Elective courses | ||
| Second Year | ||
| Fall | 2-3 | |
2-3 CUs: combination of Engineering Math, Concentration Core, MEAM Elective, or General Elective courses | ||
| MEAM Seminar | ||
or EAS 8960 | Professional Master's Career Development | |
| Spring | 1-2 | |
1-2 CUs: combination of Engineering Math, Concentration Core, MEAM Elective, or General Elective courses | ||
| Total Course Units | 10 | |