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Washington Engineer- July 2018 Dean's Message

Michael Bragg standing, with purple and gold tieDear Friends of Engineering,

Last month we celebrated commencement with our students and their families. The graduating class included 11 STARS students, part of the first cohort to earn their degrees. STARS began five years ago as a program to help more low-income students from underserved high schools become engineers at the UW. I’m pleased to report that the program is showing strong results, with 75 percent of its students either continuing in engineering or graduating.

It might be the middle of summer, but our student teams continue to represent the college in competitions around the globe. This June, our Society for Advanced Rocket Propulsion launched to first place in the 30,000-foot category at the Spaceport America Cup in New Mexico. Our Washington Hyperloop team placed in the final four, and first in the U.S., at the Hyperloop Pod Competition held at SpaceX. Other teams, like Formula SAE and Concrete Canoe, also performed well in their respective competitions: Formula SAE came in third and Concrete Canoe came in seventh in national contests. In this issue, you will read about our Advanced Robotics group, which is headed to China this month with a team of robots for the RoboMaster competition.

While our current students continue to make us proud, we are preparing to welcome our first class admitted through our "Direct to College" process this fall. In addition, the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering is expanding its "direct to major" admissions program for incoming freshmen. Beginning with the incoming class of fall 2019, direct admission from high school will be the primary pathway into computer science at the UW.

Thank you for taking the time to learn more about the exciting work at UW Engineering and for reading Washington Engineer.


Michael B. Bragg
Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of Engineering