UC Santa Barbara College of Engineering
Engineering school at the University of California, Santa Barbara

The UC Santa Barbara College of Engineering (CoE; formally Robert Mehrabian College of Engineering) is the engineering school and one of the three undergraduate colleges at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). The College offers a mid-sized, interdisciplinary environment where innovation drives the development of both fundamental science and applied technology solutions.
As of Fall 2023, the College of Engineering had 162 faculty members, approximately 1,823 undergraduate students, and 733 graduate students.
Departments and programs
The College of Engineering comprises the following departments:
Chemical Engineering (established in 1965)
Computer Science (established in 1979)
Electrical and Computer Engineering (established in 1962)
Materials (established in 1987)
Mechanical Engineering (established in 1964)
Technology Management (established in 2022)
The college is connected to the UCSB campus through innovative multi-disciplinary/outreach academic programs:
Biological Engineering Program (BioE)
Computational Science and Engineering Program (CSE)
Media Arts and Technology Program (MAT)
Research units
UCSB Engineering is home to the nation's first NSF-funded Quantum Foundry, a center dedicated to developing materials for quantum information-based technologies. The College operates as the West Coast hub of the American Photonics Manufacturing Institute and is a key participant in the federal Next Generation Power Electronics Institute. Notably, UCSB's Materials Research Laboratory is regarded as one of the top five materials research facilities in the world. Much of this work is conducted in collaboration with UCSB's interdisciplinary research centers and institutes, which include:
American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics) in collaboration with SUNY Polytechnic Institute.
California NanoSystems Institute
Center for Bio-Image Informatics
Center for Control, Dynamical-Systems, and Computation
Center for Information Technology and Society
Center for Nanotechnology in Society
Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering
Complex Fluid Design Consortium
Dow Materials Institute
Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies
Institute for Multiscale Materials Studies
Institute for Energy Efficiency
Interdisciplinary Center for Wide Band-Gap Semiconductors
Materials Research Laboratory
Mitsubishi Chemical Center for Advanced Materials
National Nanofabrication Infrastructure Network
Optoelectronics Research Group
Solid State Lighting and Energy Electronics Center
UCSB Nanofabrication Research Center
Academics
Undergraduate programs
The college offers the B.S. degree in chemical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. The B.S. programs in chemical engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering are accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). The computer science B.S. program is accredited by the Computing Accreditation Commission of ABET. Jointly with the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the college offers an undergraduate degree in computer engineering.
The public source identifies “UC Santa Barbara College of Engineering” as engineering school at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Santa, Barbara and College.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7864111. Authority coordinates are 34.414, -119.841. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2023, 1965, 1979 and 1962.
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