People with a mechanical engineering degree are involved in designing, building and testing essentially every product of modern society. Students with a mechanical engineering major can customize their program to meet their unique interests and career goals by choosing concentrations in biomechanical engineering, engineering mechanics, global engineering or manufacturing engineering. Teaching labs include a full-service Engineering Machine Shop and Industrial Project Lab, and labs providing hands-on experience in vibrations and controls, heat transfer, fluids and experimental mechanics. Research labs focuses on cardiovascular and tissue mechanics, thermal engineering, biomechanical design and research within the Composite Vehicle Research Center and the Energy and Automotive Research Lab.<br>Mechanical engineers contribute greatly to the development of technologies to convert energy from one form into another. Automobile powertrains convert the chemical energy of fossil or biofuels into the kinetic energy of a moving car. Wind turbines convert the kinetic energy of the wind into electrical energy for the power grid. The fundamental courses of mechanical engineering (e.g., thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, vibrations) provide an essential understanding needed to model, analyze, and design many means of energy conversion. The energy concentration is designed to provide undergraduate students with a more thorough understanding of the analytical, computational, and experimental methods for developing means to convert energy to useful forms from various sources. These skills have applications beyond energy conversion for power generation and apply to many areas of mechanical engineering and other interdisciplinary fields. This concentration is well suited for preparing students for industrial careers, as well as for graduate study.