Three Engineering Programs Ranked in Top 100 by U.S. News

By Brenda Ortiz

April 8, 2025

UC Merced’s School of Engineering and its programs continue to be recognized by U.S. News & World Report as demonstrated in the release today of its 2025 Best Graduate Schools rankings.

The R1 school advanced three spots in the latest Best Overall Engineering Schools rankings, inching closer to the nation’s top 100.

“We will continue to strive for even greater heights and to make impactful contributions to the field,” School of Engineering Dean Rakesh Goel said.

The school was No. 106 in the rankings. In addition, three individual engineering graduate programs ranked in the top 100:

No. 91 in Best Materials Engineering Programs (part of the Materials and Biomaterials Science Engineering Program, up five spots from 2024.
No. 99 in Best Computer Engineering Programs (part of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Graduate Group), the program’s first time in the top 100, up three spots from last year.
No. 85 in Best Environmental/Environmental Health Engineering Programs (part of the Environmental Systems Graduate Group).

The university, which in February joined the nation’s top echelon of research institutions, appeared in three other engineering rankings — No. 122 in Best Electrical/Electronic/Communications Engineering Programs (part of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Graduate Group); No. 101 in Best Mechanical Engineering Programs; and No. 124 in Best Biomedical Engineering/Bioengineering Programs.

“Our computer engineering program has proudly secured a spot in the top 100, reflecting the dedication and hard work of our faculty, students and staff. Additionally, two other programs — environmental engineering and materials engineering — continue to hold their prestigious positions within the top 100, showcasing our consistent excellence across multiple disciplines,” Goel said.

“I am particularly excited to share that our electrical engineering program has made a significant leap, moving up 10 spots. This achievement is a testament to our commitment to innovation, research and academic excellence.”

This achievement is a testament to our commitment to innovation, research and academic excellence.

Engineering Dean Rakesh Goel

Highlights for the School of Engineering faculty include:

UC Merced chemical and materials engineering Professor Roberto Andresen Eguiluz was awarded $168,700 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the central research and development organization of the Department of Defense, to advance his work in this area.
UC Merced researchers led by mechanical engineering Professor YangQuan Chen are taking part in a multi-agency effort aimed at efficiently measuring and mitigating methane emissions. IBM and Los Alamos National Laboratory are leading the effort, which earned a $20 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy in December.
Mechanical engineering Professor Resa Ehsani was announced as one of three inaugural recipients of the 2024 CITRIS Innovation Fellowship and AIC Awards , provided by the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute.
Mechanical engineering Professor Debora Lyn Porter earned an early career award through the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory's HBCU/MI Early Career Program.
Computer science and engineering Professor Pengfei Su has received a CAREER award for his research on cross-layer performance tuning to enhance deep learning model efficiency.
Computer science and engineering Professor Ming-Hsuan Yang has been named a 2025 Fellow by the AAAI. It is the first such fellowship for UC Merced.

U.S. News’ graduate rankings, published separately from the yearly undergraduate program rankings, are considered the gold standard of graduate and professional rankings. They are based on surveys of academic leaders and, for select programs, additional quantitative measures including placement test scores, student/faculty ratios, research expenditures, salary by profession and job placement success.

U.S. News ranks business, education, engineering, law, nursing and medicine graduate programs annually, while other disciplines and specialties in the sciences, social sciences, humanities and other areas are ranked periodically.