LEARN ABOUT OUR PROGRAMS
Graduate Programs
Expect to be challenged. Expect to excel.
The School of Civil and Environmental Engineering offers five master's and five doctoral degree programs that serve as the launching points for a wide variety of academic and career destinations.
CEE graduate students choose uniquely challenging paths toward their intended degrees. Most will work within one of six affinity groups, each of which conducts a variety of interdisciplinary research initiatives within the School, across campus, and with other universities around the world. This interdisciplinary approach to research attracts a broad array of corporate, governmental and research foundation support. Students can also gain valuable work experience through graduate assistantships in CEE, the Georgia Tech Cooperative Education Program, and the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
Our degrees:
- Master of Science in Civil Engineering
- Master of Science in Environmental Engineering
- Master of Science in Engineering Science & Mechanics
- Master of Science in Bioengineering This degree is jointly offered by the Colleges of Engineering, Computing, Sciences, and Architecture as well as the Emory University School of Medicine.
- Master of Science in Computational Science & Engineering This degree is offered jointly by the College of Engineering, the College of Computing and the College of Sciences.
- Doctor of Philosophy Students pursue the Ph.D. degree through one of six programs:
- Civil Engineering
- Environmental Engineering
- Engineering Science & Mechanics
- Bioengineering
- Computational Science & Engineering
- Ocean Science & Engineering
Please keep in mind, master’s degree applicants are typically admitted for fall semester.
Admission to the Ph.D. Program
Our Ph.D. program is available to selected students who have an excellent academic background and the capability to conduct independent research. Applicants must have earned an acceptable master's or bachelor's degree. Ph.D. applicants must choose a CEE discipline or specific field of study. After consulting with faculty, the Associate Chair for Graduate Studies grants or denies the applicant admission to the Ph.D. program in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Admission to the Ph.D. program does not constitute admission to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree. (Candidacy requirements are discussed here.)
Personal Statement Guidance
The personal statement, or statement of purpose, is your opportunity to clearly outline your academic, professional, and career objectives. Additionally, it is your chance to tell us why you wish to pursue these objectives through graduate studies in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech. Your statement should discuss your background — including academic, research, and professional experience — as well as any unique specifics related to your qualifications for a graduate program. In short, your statement should address:
- Why you wish to attend graduate school;
- Why you wish to specifically attend the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech; and
- How our program can help you reach your long-term goals.
Test Scores
MINIMUM SCORE | INSTITUTE CODE | DEPARTMENT CODE | NOTES | |
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GRE | 155 (quantitative only) | R5248 | 1102 |
Official score reports will be sent directly from the testing agency to Georgia Tech. All GRE subset scores (verbal, quantitative, analytical writing) are required for all applicants, and the TOEFL/IELTS is required for most international applicants. |
TOEFL | 90 (minimum 19 in each subsection) |
5248 | 65 | |
IELTS | 7 (minimum section scores of: 6.5 reading, 6.5 listening, 5.5 writing, and 6.5 speaking) | |||
If you know your test scores when completing the application, note them in the space provided on the application form. Although an application may be reviewed based on your self-reported scores, many faculty wish to see the official scores during their review. We advise you to plan accordingly so that your official scores arrive before the application deadline. |
Explore CEEatGT Academic Groups
Construction and Infrastructure Systems Engineering
Find out what kind of courses you can take and learn more about the expertise of our faculty: |
At Georgia Tech, students are uniquely equipped to become the civil engineers leading the technological evolution of construction and infrastructure systems engineering.
We teach our students advanced technological approaches and methods and encourage them to research and develop new ones—always with a focus on the human dimension that enables them to understand how their ideas impact people and processes.
Civil engineering students who focus on Construction and Infrastructure Systems Engineering will participate in state-of-the-art fundamental and applied projects in the areas of information technology and systems, data and system modeling and visualization, automation and robotics, infrastructure sensors and sensor systems, risk analysis, and other advanced technology-based areas.
CISE Concentration
Undergraduate students wishing to focus their civil engineering education around construction and infrastructure may choose to pursue the CISE Concentration. This concentration requires students to take a set of courses in order to earn a special transcript designation upon graduation.
Within the CISE Concentration, students may select one of two tracks: Construction Engineering Management and Infrastructure Systems Engineering.
Infrastructure Systems Engineering focuses on the facilities required to serve a community and support thriving economies. These infrastructure systems include roadways, bridges, tunnels, water treatment facilities, electrical grids, telecommunications, and others that support the foundational elements that improve our quality of life.
Construction Engineering and Management professionals lead capital intensive construction including industrial, heavy civil, commercial and residential projects. Construction Engineers are capable of implementing innovative technologies for project success, designing and facilitating construction projects with sound engineering principles, and aligning a multitude of stakeholders.
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Construction Engineering Management Track
Our program promotes critical thinking, facilitates experiential learning, and builds successful leaders in the Architectural/Engineering/Construction industry.
Students in the CEM track of the CISE Concentration have opportunities to conduct applied research with leading faculty and engage in capital-intensive urban construction projects in Atlanta, which is one of the strongest construction markets in the U.S.
Students benefit from excellent faculty with previous construction industry experience and an active network of industry supporters, including general contractors, owners, construction management consultants, government entities, subcontractors, engineering design firms, owners, material suppliers, and pre-fabrication companies.
Construction Engineering and Management (CEM)
In CEE Undergraduate CISE Concentration Requirements
Required: CEE 4100 Construction Engineering and Management
Complete three (3) from the following:
- CEE 4110 Construction Planning and Estimating
- CEE 4120 Construction Operations
- CEE 4130 Construction Safety and Health
- CEE 4140 BIM for Construction
- CEE 4150 Construction Management and Megaprojects
- CEE 4160 Smart and Sustainable Cities
- CEE 4803 Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Civil Systems
Infrastructure Systems Engineering Track
Infrastructure Systems Engineers design, coordinate, and maintain infrastructure which includes creating solutions for energy demands, water shortages and other global challenges. Our program promotes the creation and implementation of technology to develop infrastructure system solutions.
Undergraduate students who pursue the Infrastructure Systems Engineering Track of the Construction and Infrastructure Systems Engineering Concentration benefit significantly from the established active network with consultants, government entities and energy producing companies.
Students also have opportunities to conduct research with faculty members in ISE who are internationally recognized for their innovative contributions in transportation infrastructure, facility life-cycle assessment, socialenvironmental assessment, extreme event dynamics, and sustainable and resilient communities and infrastructure.
Infrastructure Systems Engineering (ISE)
In CEE Undergraduate CISE Concentration Requirements
Required: CEE 4100 Construction Engineering and Management
Complete three (3) from the following:
- CEE 4140 BIM for Construction
- CEE 4160 Smart and Sustainable Cities
- CEE 4803 Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Civil Systems
- CEE 8813 Data Analytics for CEE Systems
- CEE 8813 Sustainable Buildings
Graduate Program Tracks
Click below to learn more about the courses required for master's and doctoral students to specialize in construction and infrastructure engineering.
*Ph.D. in Construction and Infrastructure Systems Engineering follows the general CEE requirement
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Environmental Engineering
Find out what kind of courses you can take and learn more about the expertise of our faculty: |
Our Environmental Engineering program provides comprehensive educational and research opportunities in air, land, and water science and engineering. Our faculty members have a broad range of experience and expertise. They work in top-notch research facilities. They collaborate extensively with other engineering and science faculty across campus.
That means we attract the highest-caliber students from a variety of engineering and science backgrounds. And we design your master’s or Ph.D. program specifically for your professional goals.
Our program is a key component in campus-wide initiatives on biological engineering, bioscience and biotechnology, nanotechnology, materials science and technology, sustainable technology and development, environmental science and technology, and energy systems.
Key Research Areas:
- Air pollution: emissions, formation, transport, and deposition of aerosols
- Chemical and environmental multiphase transport processes
- Environmental and analytical chemistry
- Environmental biotechnology for bioremediation of contaminated soil, sediments and waters
- Hazardous substances in sediments, soils, waters and residues
- Nanotechnology in the environment
- Physical, chemical and biological processes influencing subsurface fate and transport of contaminants
- Physicochemical processes for water and wastewater treatment
- Sustainable technology and development
KEY RESEARCH PROJECTS |
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RESEARCH
Geosystems Engineering
Find out what kind of courses you can take and learn more about the expertise of our faculty: |
Our geosystems engineering program merges geotechnics, geophysics, geomechanics and geology.
We focus on the behavior of natural materials in engineered systems, encompassing traditional and emerging topics within the field — like advanced techniques for site and material characterization; constitutive and micromechanical modeling; natural and man-made hazard mitigation; engineered soils; biotechnology; geotechnical aspects of resource recovery; and foundation design, slope stability, and excavation support.
Our graduate students work with world-class faculty to conduct fundamental and applied research using analytical, numerical, and experimental methods. They also help us teach and participate in a wide range of professional development and social activities coordinated by the Georgia Tech Geotechnical Society.
Facilities
Geosystems instruction facilities, research groups and laboratories occupy more than 10,000 square feet of custom space in the Mason Building. The research groups include:
Geoenvironmental Engineering Group
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Structural Engineering, Mechanics, and Materials
Find out what kind of courses you can take and learn more about the expertise of our faculty: |
Our program’s academic and research activities have earned an international reputation for excellence — a reputation strengthened by an environment that fosters learning, discovery and creativity.
That world renown comes from our work in: creative use of advanced structural materials and composite systems to improve infrastructure; earthquake engineering; cladding effects on, and hybrid control of, the response of tall buildings to earthquakes and wind; steel connection design and behavior; and structural reliability and risk assessment.
Our students learn about — and conduct advance research on — structural analysis and design, the behavior of structural systems, earthquake engineering, engineering science and mechanics, high-performance materials, computer-aided engineering, risk and reliability, and intelligent engineering learning environments.
They are encouraged to form partnerships with each other and our faculty members to develop their skills and advance our profession. And we foster a multidisciplinary environment where we’re developing solutions to engineering problems of national and international importance.
Facilities
Our School is equipped with state-of-the-art laboratories and instruments for all aspects of modern structural engineering and structural mechanics and materials research. This includes:
- An 18,000-square-foot Structures and Materials Laboratory with an 8,000-square-foot strong floor, an L-shaped reaction wall with capacities of 100-300 kips, and two 30-ton-capacity cranes. More… (Learn about construction of this facility in STRUCTUREmag.)
- A broad range of universal testing machines, with capacity to 400 kips.
- Specialized facilities for mechanical testing with infrared thermography and photoelastic stress/strain analysis.
- A nondestructive evaluation/optics laboratory.
- A laser scanning confocal microscope.
- Numerous high-performance workstations equipped with state-of-the-art software in structural engineering and mechanics.
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Transportation Systems Engineering
Find out what kind of courses you can take and learn more about the expertise of our faculty: |
Transportation systems are the building blocks of modern society. Efficient and safe movement of information, people, goods and services ensures a thriving economy and improves our quality of life.
Our students study not only the efficient, safe design and operations of these critical linkages but also the systems’ influence on our travel behavior, how we design our communities and the quality of our environment. Working with our faculty of world-renowned scholars, graduate students also help improve the design and performance of our transportation systems as well as our understanding of how they fit into the environmental, institutional and social contexts of our society.
Students supplement their core technical transportation courses in urban planning, traffic engineering, highway and transit facility design, administration, and statistical analysis with interdisciplinary coursework from other units across Georgia Tech.
Facilities
Our research facilities include a unique traffic signal lab, an instrumented vehicle lab, and the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) laboratory.
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Water Resources Engineering
Find out what kind of courses you can take and learn more about the expertise of our faculty: |
Graduate students in Water Resources Engineering can expect a stimulating and diverse educational experience where you participate in innovative experimental, computational and modeling research that creates new knowledge.
Our program focuses on water, air, and land systems, with emphasis on the science and engineering applications of environmental transport processes and sustainable resource management. And our students and faculty members develop their research into new technologies that benefit engineering practice in fluid mechanics, hydraulics, hydrology, hydroclimatology, and water resources.
Facilities
The Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory includes a large constant-head tank, a 4.3 m wide sediment scour flume, a 24 m long tilting flume, a recirculating flume for cohesive sediment resuspension, a recirculating salt-water flume, a density-stratified towing tank, and a 24 m long wave tank. Instrumentation includes Acoustic Doppler Velocimetry (ADV), Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV), Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF), and three-dimensional visualization.
The Computational Laboratory includes a 16-node (64 CPUs) High Performance computing cluster and a number of Linux workstations. An eight-CPU, 32GB RAM visualization workstation was recently added. Our graduate students also have access to Georgia Tech's high performance computing systems and several European supercomputers.
Field instrumentation includes pressure transducers and ther mistors; a Campbell Scientific Eddy Covariance Tower System that directly measures sensible, latent and CO2 fluxes between the terrestrial landscape through the atmosphere. This tower includes soil moisture probes, a rain gauge and dataloggers. Additional equipment includes an ISCO portable water sampler with ultrasonic level sensor and rain gauge, a depth-integrating suspended sediment sampler, a bed sediment sampler, a PPP Spectral Analyzer, and current meters.
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ABOUT OUR SCHOOL
Quick Facts: Download a printable version | View sources
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Civil Engineering
Look around you. The work of civil engineers is everywhere. The roads and bridges we travel on, sure. The buildings we live, work and play in, too. But also systems that bring us clean water and take away waste. Strategies that help us recover from disasters. Energy innovations to power the future. Technologies for green buildings. New materials and sensors for smart infrastructure systems. Projects to alleviate poverty. In other words, civil engineers design the systems, technologies and structures that ready our modern world for a growing, aging human population and make life better in our communities.
Civil engineers are problem solvers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and global leaders. They will invent the technologies of the future and create solutions to challenges we haven’t even imagined yet. A civil engineering education also provides a foundation to move into leadership positions in the public, private or nonprofit sectors, or pursue careers beyond engineering, like law, medicine, business and healthcare.
Environmental Engineering
If you’ve thought about how we control pollution in the air and water or how we clean up contaminated waste sites or how we assess exposure and human risk, you’re already thinking like an environmental engineer. From clean drinking water and air quality monitoring to pollution controls and sustainable development, environmental engineers are designing new ways to make life better for people around the globe while respecting our world’s natural resources.
Environmental engineers use core engineering skills and a deep understanding of the physical, chemical and biological principles of the local, regional and global environment to help change the world.
The pulse of today's world beats with technological revolution, population dynamics, environmental concerns, urban development and more. As a result, civil and environmental engineers must be creative problem solvers to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The programs in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech are based on engineering fundamentals and real-world experience to ensure our students are ready to address complex, multidisciplinary problems to improve the lives of people on a global scale.
Our graduates pursue careers in a variety of civil and environmental engineering jobs in industry and government. They also work in fields as diverse as banking, law and medicine. They travel the world, working to improve the lives of people in developing nations. Still others ultimately decide to start their own businesses. And they work everywhere you can imagine (and maybe some places that would surprise you):
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