The Engineering Institute: A Collaborative Graduate Education And Research Program

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have taken the unprecedented step of creating a collaborative, multi-disciplinary graduate education program and associated research agenda called the Engineering Institute. The technology thrust of the Engineering Institute is damage prognosis, a multidisciplinary engineering science concerned with assessing the current condition and predicting the remaining life of a wide variety of structural systems. The mission of the Engineering Institute is to develop a comprehensive approach for conducting LANL mission-driven, multidisciplinary engineering research and to improve recruiting, revitalization and retention of the current and future staff necessary to support LANL’s nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship responsibilities. The components of the Engineering Institute to be discussed in this paper are 1) the Los Alamos Dynamic Summer School (LADSS), 2) a joint LANL/UCSD degree program with a unique focus in validated simulations, structural health monitoring, and damage prognosis, 3) joint LANL/UCSD research projects, and 4) industry short courses. This program is a possible model for future industry/government interactions with university partners.