Industry Engagement

A relationship with the UK College of Engineering is a partnership with the Commonwealth’s flagship engineering school. Your business will benefit by having access to renowned researchers, experts in their disciplines, who will work with you to solve your company’s more pressing technical problems, specialized equipment and facilities not available elsewhere, and a pool of talented students to fill co-op, intern or permanent employment positions.

Contact Kim Sayre to find out how you can join forces with the UK Pigman College of Engineering.

Kim Sayre

Innovation Connect Manager

Linked Department (or Location): UK Innovate
Location Detail: Ralph G. Anderson Building, 375B
Email: kim.sayre@uky.edu
Phone: 859-257-3343

Get Involved

If your company is looking for ways to establish a presence within the UK College of Engineering, we offer numerous opportunities to make connections.

Interact with our student organizations. You can present to a group, host a meeting, support a major project, judge student competitions, mentor student organizations or individuals and more.
Sponsor Senior Capstone Design Projects. Providing a capstone design project for student teams is an excellent way to evaluate talent, get a proposed solution to a problem or challenge facing your company and increase your brand presence in the college.
Lend your expertise at Career Connections. Volunteer by reviewing student resumes and participating in mock interviews through our Career Connections events.
Participate in our Wildcat Cage Competition Connect with engineering student leaders through a new competition that allows your company to invest in a student organization’s initiative. All funds can be considered charitable and tax-deductible.
Serve on advisory boards. Access to industry perspective is essential for our departments to be able to offer a leading-edge engineering education.
Host Plant Tours. Offering plant tours is another way you can educate students about your products and processes.
Be Part of our Engineers Day Open House (E-Day). Our annual E-Day celebration of engineering at UK takes place the last Saturday in February. Get your company’s name in front of thousands of engineering enthusiasts of all ages.
Deliver a guest lecture. Speak at a student organization meeting or during a class about industry subject matter that will help relate their course content to the real world. It's a great way to increase awareness of your company.
Collaborate on outreach initiatives. Throughout the year, we host outreach events that expose K-12 students to the world of engineering. You can join us by hosting a plant tour, serving as a guest speaker, underwriting an event or volunteering.
Be a mentor to a student. Share your work experience, professional knowledge and expertise, personal career path, and interests with your student mentee.

Talent Pipeline

Co-op and Internship Programs

Hire one of our students for a co-op stint or internship for a semester or the summer. Not only will they make contributions during their employment, but you may also discover you want to hire them after they graduate. We invite companies to meet students interested in co-ops or internships at our fall and spring co-op and internship fairs.

Career Fairs

Twice a year, our College’s Career Development Team hosts an Engineering and Computer Science Career Fair. Meet hundreds of engineering and computer science students who are about to enter the workforce and find your next great hire!

Education in Top Disciplines

We offer thirteen undergraduate majors: aerospace engineering, biomedical engineering, biosystems engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, computer engineering technology, computer science, electrical engineering, lean systems engineering technology, materials engineering, mechanical engineering and mining engineering; two minors: biomedical engineering and computer science; and eight undergraduate certificates: aerospace, artificial intelligence, automotive production engineering, biopharmaceutical engineering, cybersecurity, environmental engineering, lean systems and power and energy.

Explore Professional Development

True Lean™ certification

Since 1994, the College has enjoyed a fruitful partnership with Toyota Motor Manufacturing. As a result, we offer True Lean™ certification. Training is available on campus or at your facility. Most of our instructors are former Toyota employees who have been teaching the Toyota Production Systems for many years.

View all TrueLean Services

Online MFS Degree

Want to upgrade your employees’ skills without taking them off the job for weeks or months at a time? We offer a 100% online master’s degree in manufacturing systems engineering. Enrolled students get Kentucky resident tuition rate for online courses and a GRE score is not required.

View degree details

Enhance Your Research and Development

Get Access to Experts

Our faculty members are not only experts in their fields, but also agile collaborators accustomed to working on multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional scales. Most of our faculty members operate highly sophisticated laboratories with specialized equipment and excellent graduate students. Take a moment to review our Researcher Database here or contact Kim Sayre to find the expert you are looking for.

Facilities and Research Units

The College of Engineering has 13 buildings that comprise nearly 300,000 square feet of usable space. The College also hosts ten research units and is affiliated with numerous other University of Kentucky research centers and institutes.

Center for Aluminum Technology
Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering
Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments
Electron Microscopy Center
Kentucky Transportation Center
Institute of Research for Technology Development
Institute for Sustainable Manufacturing
Vibro-Acoustics Consortium
Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky
Unmanned Systems Research Consortium

Technology Commercialization

The Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) is the technology transfer office for UK. The core mission of the OTC is to facilitate the commercialization of UK innovations and discoveries for the benefit of the University community, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and global society. UK OTC is actively looking for industry and investor partners. OTC works efficiently to facilitate:

License agreements
Material and data transfer agreements
Confidentiality agreements
On-campus meetings with researchers
Investment opportunities
Mentoring opportunities
Pitch meetings and events
Newsletters, which include select available technologies

Support the College

So much of what we do in the College of Engineering is not possible without generous philanthropic support. Contribute to the next generation of engineers in one or more of the following ways:

Scholarships

The majority of our students rely on scholarships to subsidize their engineering education. The capacity to offer competitive scholarships not only benefits worthy students, but also enables UK to reliably be the first choice of the best and brightest students pursuing engineering. Both endowed and non-endowed scholarships are needed to support both merit and need-based aid.

Gifts-in-kind

Gifts-in-kind are personal and corporate gifts of equipment or other allowable material goods to the College. Given the needs within the field of engineering, gifts-in-kind are often technological in nature. Past gifts include computers, machines and iPads.

Match Gifts to College from Your Employees

Many companies offer a wonderful benefit to their employees by matching their contributions to organizations. Of all the colleges on campus, engineering stands to benefit the most because many of our alumni work for companies that offer this benefit. Taking advantage of such a benefit will double and sometimes triple a donor’s gift.