Pitt’s Space Engineering Program Is Ready for Liftoff

In 2017, Pitt took its first step toward becoming a space university with the establishment of the NSF Space, High-performance, and Resilient Computing (SHREC) Center.

In 2024, over 100 Pitt faculty who had shared interests in space from across a variety of schools and disciplines joined force, launching Pitt Space. With it, the first official suite of four space-engineering core courses at Pitt was rolled out to seniors and graduate students.

Earlier in 2026, Health Sciences launched the Trivedi Institute for Space and Global Biomedicine, one of the first dedicated institutes focused on applying insights from spaceflight to improve human health on Earth.

What else can Pitt do to prepare students with the background, knowledge and skills needed to come out on top in the second space age?

“Our next step is to start establishing formal academic programs to make Pitt a recognized space university,” said Alan George, department chair, Mickle Endowed Chair, and professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) in the Swanson School of Engineering.

Beginning in Fall of 2026, Pitt students will have the opportunity to enroll in a new academic degree program which will offer a space-engineering minor for undergraduates, and a space-engineering certificate for graduate students.

The program is intentionally broad as to be able to include students across a variety of STEM fields. “I am excited at how accessible we've made this minor,” said Samuel Dickerson, vice chair for education, associate professor, and director of the Computer Engineering Undergraduate Program. 

“We've created courses that should be accessible to most STEM majors at the University, reflective of the interdisciplinary nature of the Space field.”

Ultimately, Pitt Space expects to roll out two additional academic programs; in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, faculty are building upon longstanding strengths in physics, astronomy, and geology to develop new courses and programs in Space Science. Similarly, led by the Trivedi Institute, Health Sciences are building upon their world-renowned strengths to develop new courses and programs in Space Biomedicine.

The inaugural engineering program stands apart from offerings at most schools in several key ways, all designed to help Pitt graduates stand out from the crowd.

“Some engineering schools have aerospace engineering,” George said, “but that’s not what we’re doing. We are focusing strictly upon space engineering.” That translates into a leaner, more focused pathway for students who know they want to work on engineering problems in space, not closer to home.

The second differentiator grew out of a historical quirk. “Most aerospace engineering departments grew out of mechanical engineering,” George said. Pitt’s program, however, is situated in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

“Now, and going forward, electrical and computer engineering is a bigger part of space engineering than mechanics.” As the founder and director of SHREC, George and his students have been working on the leading edge of this evolution, building more powerful and affordable computer systems that are resilient to withstand the harsh environment of space. “We are focused upon the way things are going, not the way they have been.”

The new degree offerings should appeal to students in another way: as a minor or a certificate, it won’t hold students back from gaining the full depth and breadth of their chosen discipline. 

“For example, say you get your bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and add a minor in space engineering on top of that. You will have a discipline degree, so you will be a fully qualified electrical engineer,” George said. A student with those qualifications could contribute as an electrical engineer in just about any domain.  

“But on top of that,” he said, “you will be a space engineer,” with specialty skills that few others can match.