The department of materials science and engineering merged with road & airport engineering materials direction and energy and electronic materials direction of the former inorganic nonmetallic materials engineering major, successfully approved the material science and engineering major in 2014. The specialty of road and airport engineering materials aims at adapting to the industrial upgrading of traditional transportation infrastructure materials. Its history can be traced back to the early 1950s when the university was founded. It is the national 985 project dominant discipline innovation platform and “211 project” and “double first-class” discipline key construction major. The direction of energy and electronic materials was established in June 2009 under the background of the rapid development of new energy industry and the shortage of new composite material talents, has gradually become an important support for the functionalization and informatization of the transportation industry. Since its establishment, this major has cultivated a large number of senior engineering and technical talents for the transportation, new energy and electronic information industries, and promoted the development of regional economy and industry.
The department enrolls doctoral students at the second-level doctorate program in road materials science and engineering, master students at the second-level master program in road materials science and engineering, materials science and materials physics and chemistry, and undergraduates in the material science and engineering program. Relying on the engineering research center of transportation pavement materials, ministry of education and the first-class specialty cultivation project in Shaanxi province, the university has built an undergraduate teaching laboratory with an area of 3,000 m2, and owns a number of first-class experimental and testing equipment in China. It has established communication and cooperation relations with many famous universities and research institutions at home and abroad, and built provincial and ministerial collaborative innovation center, industry-university-research joint training demonstration station and other practice bases with more than 10 leading industrial units such as China communications first survey and design research institute co., ltd. and Beijing urban construction group.
The department has 31 full-time teachers, including 8 professors, 14 associate professors, 5 doctoral supervisors and 23 master supervisors. The faculties of our department all have doctor's degree, 21 have overseas study or visiting experience, 20 have postdoctoral experience. This major has 1 winner of the new century excellent talents support plan of the ministry of education, and 1 innovation team of highway construction and maintenance materials in special areas of the ministry of transport.
The department has established good cooperative relations with Japan industrial technology research institute, Japan Toyohashi University of technology and science, University of Auckland, New Zealand, Purdue University, North Carolina state university and Virginia Polytechnic University. Every year, excellent students are selected to study in exchange programs.
Relying on the highway transportation industry, the department focuses on the cross-development of the national 985 project dominant discipline innovation platform, 211 project and double first-class construction disciplines, takes root in the west, bases itself on the industry, aims at the national major strategic needs, and builds the industry-leading discipline with distinctive characteristics. Centering on the construction of national major and complex projects, this department has formed characteristic researches on transportation functional materials, green ecological building materials, new energy electronic materials, transportation photoelectric materials and devices. In recent years, it has undertaken more than 100 scientific research projects, including 20 national projects, published more than 100 SCI/EI retrieval papers, obtained more than 50 national patents and more than 20 national, provincial and ministerial science and technology awards. In the past two years, 20 innovation and entrepreneurship training programs have been approved for department students, and 8 innovation and entrepreneurship competitions above the provincial level have been awarded for our students relying on scientific research projects.
The department takes first-class undergraduate major as the goal, relies on the industry characteristics, focuses on the cross-development of the school's dominant discipline (transportation engineering), and cultivates high-quality scientific research and application-oriented senior technical talents with solid foundation, emphasis on practice and good innovation. On the basis of years of experience in running schools, an educational mode and supporting system featuring the cultivation of practical ability and innovative ability are formed. In the future, we will continue to adopt the method of key, hierarchical and rolling construction to build high-level teaching teams and experimental and internship bases, improve the overall teaching level and comprehensively improve the quality of talent cultivation, and strive to build this major into an undergraduate major with reasonable resource allocation, distinctive features, prominent advantages and rich connotations.
