Department of Mechanical Engineering

Engineering leaders for tomorrow at NAU

Prepare for a rewarding, challenging, high-paying career by studying to become a mechanical engineer in a personalized, student-centered environment. You’ll learn professional design techniques and strategies and have the chance to implement them through research, projects, and internship opportunities.

Our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and industry partners work synergistically to improve the state of Arizona and society at large, through mechanical engineering research, education, and service.

Mechanical Engineering (ME) is one of the broadest engineering disciplines. A mechanical engineering degree provides an excellent background for a broad range of engineering careers and for careers that require a strong technical background. The Mechanical Engineering Department at NAU offers programs leading to bachelor of science, master of science, master of engineering, and doctor of philosophy degrees in mechanical engineering.

Prospective students

If you’re considering one of our programs, you can find more information for prospective graduate students or prospective undergraduate students.

Explore our research

By the numbers

663

Students

15

Faculty

$5.7M

Grant awards

Visit NAU today

You are cordially invited to pay us a visit either via our Daily Campus Visit program or our Discover NAU open houses throughout the year.

News from NAU Mechanical Engineering

The VISible and Infrared ObservatioN System (VISIONS) is Northern Arizona University’s (NAU) student-led, low-cost, dual-wavelength imager for planetary science applications that is planned to be integrated on to the twin ESCAPADE Mars orbiters. The goal of this project is to demonstrate how commercial off-the-shelf components can be ruggedly integrated and tested to withstand the space environment, for supplementary mission data, using a ‘do-no-harm’ design philosophy. The VISIONS instrument contains a three band Bayer pattern RGB visible sensor and a broadband thermal infrared VOx microbolometer. Although the electrical subsystems were designed and fabricated by Lucint systems under the guidance of the NAU design team, the mechanical assembly was wholly designed and fabricated by a team of NAU mechanical engineering students. At only 91.0 x 98.0 x 75.3 mm with a final mass of 603 g, the scale of VISIONS made it possible for the student design team to move from blank paper to delivered flight instruments in approximately one year while earning credit and applied engineering experience. After passing through their environmental testing this spring, the twin VISIONS instruments will be delivered for integration on the ESCAPADE orbiters in the summer of 2023.