August 18, 2021 

Dear College of Engineering Community,

Welcome to the 2021-2022 academic year! Despite the challenges of COVID and remote learning, the College of Engineering is going strong with fully accredited programs and world-class faculty. A few highlights of the past year:

• While most of our courses were delivered online, we also safely taught several in-person labs. Thank you to our faculty and staff for their commitment and effort!  The result was a successful academic year that utilized multiple teaching modalities.
• We launched the College of Engineering Innovation website as a showcase for capstone projects and undergraduate, graduate, and faculty research. We continued to conduct research that benefits Alaskans, such as Dr. Srinivasan’s work developing corrosion test sites, and Dr. Heidari’s work to study the interaction between wildfires, energy infrastructure, and the environment.
• We continued our Summer Engineering Academies for elementary through high school students with sessions that included 3D Printing and Design, Videography, Minecraft Coding, Creative Coding, and LEGO Robotics. Thanks to our generous sponsors, MTA Foundation and ConocoPhillips Alaska, we reached over 200 young Alaskans.
• UAA engineering students partnered with UAF engineering students to offer Introduction to Engineering content for 365 Smart Academies, a K-12 homeschool program in Alaska.

Looking forward, we are excited to grow new programs, such as our Occupational Endorsement Certificate in GIS and Graduate Certificate in Project Management. In addition, we are in the process of readmitting students to the AAS in Geomatics. We also plan to build on what we’ve learned this past year with online delivery to offer more programs remotely and bring educational opportunities to students that may not be able to physically travel to the Anchorage campus. Above all, we are honored to continue serving our students and fostering Alaska’s robust community of engineers, computer scientists, project managers, and geomatics professionals.

As we bring back face-to-face courses and in-person activities we will undoubtedly encounter difficulties — and we are up to the challenge. Thank you for your flexibility and for working with us. Together we will continue to meet our mission to educate and inspire, and explore innovative solutions that engage Alaska and beyond.

 

Dr. Kenrick Mock
Dean and Professor of Computer Science
UAA College of Engineering
907-786-1956
kjmock@alaska.edu