JB Speed School of Engineering

River City Rocketry represented Speed School at the 2026 International Rocket Engineering Competition in Midland, Texas, the largest collegiate rocketry event in the world. Despite a five-hour weather delay in triple-digit heat, the team's rocket performed exactly as designed.

Read the full story of their 11-month journey to IREC: https://engineering.louisville.edu/river-city-rocketry-finishes-strong-at-2026-irec/

Congratulations to the incoming freshmen who completed this year's Brown-Forman Engineering Academy (BFEA)!

The two-week, live-on-campus program wrapped up this past Thursday with student project presentations and a closing reception. BFEA helps accepted engineering freshmen prepare for the transition to college through academic prep, peer support, and faculty relationship-building. This cohort will continue meeting together throughout the fall and spring semesters, earning scholarship money along the way. Welcome to the Speed School family!

Wishing a happy and safe Fourth of July to everyone across the Speed School community. However you're celebrating this weekend, we hope it's a great one!

What does a Speed School education look like 225 feet above Chicago? For alumnus Chris Bird, it looks like 39 concrete panels, each at 40 feet tall and weighing 14,000 pounds, bearing the words of President Obama's historic 2015 Selma speech on the facade of the newly opened Obama Presidential Center.

Read how his UofL education, a White House internship, and a once-in-a-career engineering challenge came together in this week's alumni profile: https://bit.ly/4eJTqsN

Alumnus Chris Bird » High above Chicago’s Jackson Park at 225 feet in the air, 103 words from one of the most consequential speeches of the Obama presidency stretch across the facade of the new Obama Presidential Center. The words are not painted or projected or etched. They are cast in concrete, structurally signific...

It is with heavy hearts that we share that Dr. Dar-Jen Chang, a beloved faculty member in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, passed away on June 18.

Dr. Chang gave 43 years of dedicated service to the University of Louisville inspiring and mentoring generations of students and touching countless lives through his kindness, generosity, and gentle spirit. He will be deeply missed.

Our thoughts are with his family and all who had the privilege of knowing him.

What started as a master's thesis is now an award-winning study shaping the future of virtual reality training. Dr. Fasal Aqlan and collaborators Dr. Jason Saleem, Dalton Sparks, and Rumena Begum just earned a Best Paper Award for their research on how teams collaborate in immersive digital spaces.

Learn more about their work and what's next here:

Aqlan Best Paper Award » A research team led by Dr. Fasal Aqlan, associate professor in the University of Louisville’s J.B. Speed School of Engineering, has received the Best Paper Award from IISE Transactions on Occupational Ergonomics and Human Factors for their study “Exploring Team Dynamics in Virtual Reality Enviro...

Big news from our Civil & Environmental Engineering department!

Speed School has renewed its research partnership with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet for a third time, with the latest renewal carrying a $1.5 million contract to fund cutting-edge transportation research through 2028. Across research areas that include smarter intersection design and bridge-monitoring sensors, our faculty and students are tackling the infrastructure challenges that matter most to Kentuckians.

Read the full story here:

KYTC 2026 Research Contract Renewal » The J.B. Speed School of Engineering has renewed its biennial research partnership with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC), securing a $1.5 million contract that will fund civil and environmental engineering research through fiscal years 2027 and 2028. The renewal marks the third iteration o...

Louisville's "can opener" viaduct at Third Street and Eastern Parkway is no stranger to semi-truck collisions, but the I-65 closure has pushed things to a new level. To help make sense of it all, civil & environmental engineering faculty member Brandon Shelley breaks down the engineering and policy challenges behind one of the city's most persistent infrastructure problems:

Speed School Can Opener » Tucked at the intersection of Third Street and Eastern Parkway, just steps from the Vogt Building on Speed School’s campus, sits one of Louisville’s most notorious spectacles. The Third Street viaduct, a railroad bridge owned by CSX and Norfolk Southern, carries trains overhead while allowing ve...