Materials Science and Engineering

Master’s and Doctoral Programs

Graduate opportunities

Biomedical materials, metals, polymers, glasses and electronics are being tested and improved. Materials engineers and scientists solve vital problems and advance technology every day. Where will you make your contribution?

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of North Texas offers course work leading to a Master of Science degree or a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Materials Science and Engineering. Our programs provide strong collaborative links with other universities and industries in the Dallas-Fort Worth region and research organizations throughout the world.

You’ll have many opportunities to develop highly marketable skills in areas such as:

• Academia
• Automotive
• Microelectronics
• Aerospace
• Biomedical
• Chemical
• Power
• Nanotechnology
• Environmental

We address the educational and technological challenges of creating, applying and characterizing new materials for manufacturing products in the 21st century. As part of your graduate studies, you learn all aspects of modern materials and their characterization including metals, ceramics, polymers, and electronic and optical materials.

Impact the future

The College of Engineering and the department are located at Discovery Park, our 300-acre research facility where innovative, futuristic ideas are investigated daily — from the development of stealth unmanned vehicles to compostable plastic packaging to new energy-efficient lighting materials.

With small class sizes, you will work closely with distinguished faculty members to solve complex problems faced by businesses and consumers. You also can take advantage of the invaluable contacts we have with leading companies and corporate partners.

The department has 20 faculty members plus well-equipped laboratories with outstanding technical support. Several post-doctoral researchers contribute to the department as well as co-investigators from other engineering departments and the physics, chemistry and biological sciences departments.

Research opportunities

We have attracted many nationally recognized faculty members who partner with students on research projects and serve as mentors and advisors. Professor Alan Needleman, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is one of the country’s top engineering professors and researchers.

Professor and Department Chair Narendra Dahotre was elected a Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and recognized for his contributions to the understanding and engineering of laser-materials interactions and the implementation of high-power lasers for materials processing and surface engineering.

The department has a number of laboratories and groups researching properties of metals, ceramics, polymers, electronic and optical materials. The department is located adjacent to the UNT Center for Advanced Research and Technology (CART) that houses more than $12 million of state-of-the-art instrumentation.

The Advanced Metallic Materials Group focuses on the processing and characterization of metals, alloys, intermetallics and composites.

The Computational Materials Modeling Group applies state-of-the-art multi-scale materials simulation methods from density functional theory, classical atomistic simulations (such as large-scale molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods) to continuum scale finite element analysis to study a wide range of material structures, defect processes and structure-property relations.

The Laboratory of Advanced Polymers and Optimized Materials is dedicated to the development of materials with improved mechanical, tribological and thermophysical properties, including thermoplastics, thermosets, composites, nanohybrids and coatings.

The Laboratory for Electronic Materials and Devices has comprehensive electronic materials synthesis and characterization capabilities.

The Laboratory for Moving Mechanical Assemblies concentrates on thin film processing and characterization of next generation nanostructured materials for mitigation of friction and wear (tribological) in sliding and rolling devices.

The Materials Synthesis and Processing Laboratory studies the development of novel materials and processing methods for semiconductor, biomedical and defense applications.

The Optoelectronics and Thin Film Materials Laboratory focuses on the physics and processing of inorganic and organic semiconductor materials and devices for solid state lighting, solar conversion and other energy saving and generating applications.

The Polymer Mechanical and Rheology Laboratory houses studies in polymers, hydrogels, food packaging, ceramic corrosion coatings, elastomers, blends, nanocomposites, macro-composites, nanotube filled adhesives and polymer-modified concrete.

Students and faculty members work in close collaboration with CART and heavily use its facilities. CART manages state-of-the-art capabilities including an Imago Scientific Instruments Local Electrode Atom Probe 3000x, a FEI Tecnai TF20ST analytical high-resolution transmission electron microscope, a FEI Nova 200 NanoLab dual-beam scanning electron microscope and focused ion beam instrument, an environmental scanning electron microscope, high-resolution scanning XPS and Auger systems, RAMAN and FTIR spectrometers, ellipsometers, and high-resolution X-ray diffraction systems.

Attending UNT

Admission requirements

You must meet the requirements of the Toulouse Graduate School® plus a set of specific program requirements. Information about graduate school admission is available at the Graduate School website.

Admission to the program is based on a holistic review of the requirements outlined at our website. Additional information is available from the graduate coordinator.

Degree requirements

Two options for the master’s degree are offered. The thesis option requires 32 credit hours, and the problems-in- lieu of thesis route requires 35 credit hours. Work for the master’s thesis consists of independent and original studies, which may be experimental, computational or a combination of the two.

The doctoral degree requires 72 credit hours beyond the bachelor’s degree or 42 credit hours beyond the master’s degree, with 12 credit hours of dissertation.

The doctoral degree represents the attainment of a high level of scholarship and achievement in independent research and culminates in the completion of an original dissertation. As a doctoral candidate, you are expected to publish at least two original research articles in a refereed journal before graduation.

Financial assistance

Teaching assistantships funded by the department and research assistantships funded by individual faculty research grants support the majority of our students. Only doctoral students and master’s students who select the thesis option are eligible for teaching or research assistantships. Out-of-state and international students who are funded at least half time are eligible for in-state tuition rates.

A limited number of in-state tuition scholarships are available. You are encouraged to view the faculty research areas below and contact a specific faculty member about research assistantships opportunities after being admitted to the program.

Information about other financial assistance programs is at the Financial Aid site.