The University of Texas at El Paso's Mechanical Engineering Department began offering coursework for the new Energy Science and Engineering (ENSE) doctoral track within the interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Environmental Science and Engineering on May 7.

“During the last two decades, the U.S. energy Research and Development (R&D) enterprises have experienced a ‘missing generation’ of energy engineers and professionals,” said Ahsan Choudhuri, Ph.D., chair of UTEP’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “There are simply not enough graduate students enrolled in energy disciplines at U.S. universities to replace the engineers and scientists who plan to retire within the next five to eight years. This has now become a serious workforce crisis and poses a serious threat to America’s energy security and sustainability.”

Richard Schoephoerster, Ph.D., dean of UTEP’s College of Engineering, said, “Next-generation energy engineers must innovate transformational technologies for affordable, abundant and low carbon energy and lead entrepreneurial ventures to commercialize those innovations. This new doctoral track evolves from our vision of educating a new pedigree of qualified engineers with the ‘soft skills,’ business acumen and strategic foresight required to meet the needs of the 21st century energy industry.”

The ENSE program will include research topics such as fossil fuel power generation efficiency improvement, carbon capture and storage, high-capacity renewable power generation and aerospace propulsion.