Mission, Vision, and Strategic Plan | Penn State Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Vision statement

Innovate. Educate. Materials that Matter.

Mission statement

Develop leaders in materials science and engineering, generate scientific discoveries, and enable new technology opportunities that serve 21^st century societal needs through educational innovations, ground-breaking research, entrepreneurial pursuits, and community outreach.

2020-2025 Strategic Plan for the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MatSE)

Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State encompasses a diverse set of teaching, research, and service efforts aimed at creating world-class engineers and scientists with safety and community as top priorities. During Fall 2019, MatSE leadership (Kimel, Maria, Mauro, Robinson, Sinnott) convened to develop discussion topics as part of the 2020-2025 MatSE strategic plan. The outcome of this was eight themes to guide the department in the coming years: research, teaching, service, people, safety, MatSE across borders, facilities, and development. Subsequently, the faculty and staff came together on January 21, 2020 to build the roadmap for MatSE based on these themes. Over the course of the day, faculty and staff developed and voted on a series of goals, objectives, and tasks that best represented our values within the MatSE community. The process led to a broad range of input that was subsequently distilled into three over-arching goals:

Goal 1: Sustain and promote a world-class and innovative MatSE graduate and undergraduate educational experience. World-class education mandates excellence in teaching, research, service, people, and safety.

Goal 2: Champion high impact research that addresses society’s current and future needs. Advance cutting-edge facilities, incorporate new ideas, and reinforce MatSE core competencies, embedded within a robust safety culture.

Goal 3: Foster and grow MatSE community and culture. A collective sentiment of well-being, inclusion and mutual support amongst the faculty, staff, students, and departmental stakeholders is tantamount to our success.