Dean's message
We Power Emerging Industries
July 2025
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No matter what twists and turns the world takes, our mission here at the Â鶹´«Ã½ Jacobs School of Engineering remains steadfast: we are educating the innovation workforce for the economy to come.
We are able to keep focused on this fundamental duty because the Jacobs School is resilient in the face of unprecedented rates of change across the research funding landscape. We pivot as needed to deliver on our interrelated missions to advance engineering and computer science education and research for the public good. We have pivoted before, and we’ll do it again.
Looking ahead, it’s clear to me that industry, foundation and philanthropic partnerships are going to be increasingly important. New partnerships will empower our Jacobs School to have the greatest positive impacts possible on the health, prosperity and security of the region and the nation.
Government funding will remain critical of course, but the landscape is changing. As engineers and computer scientists, we are obliged to plan and to work based on the world as it is, rather than how we might want it to be. By definition, engineers and computer scientists must start with on-the-ground reality and disrupt forward from there. That’s how we build better futures. It’s what we do.
In a variety of different venues over the last few months, I have shared our strategy: the Jacobs School is building new partnerships based on shared interests – partnerships that empower us to transform our engineering and computer science students into the innovation workforce the country needs. By doing this, we power emerging industries.
Across the Jacobs School, our faculty are engaging with new and long-standing partners to identify and build out the research and education collaborations with the strongest mutual interest. We are seeking new partnerships in areas where our world-class expertise, talent and facilities align with the most difficult technical challenges and workforce development priorities of our partners. We are looking for the shared challenges that no lab, discipline, company or industry can solve alone. This is our forward-looking approach to partnering with industry, government, foundations and philanthropy.
At the same time, I recognize the personal and professional hardships that funding uncertainties are causing our community. These hardships are real and they are painful. It is more important than ever that . As I’ve written before, we know how to leverage the symbiotic relationship between government and private funding for the greatest positive impact in engineering and computer science research and education.
As a community, we are finding new ways to work together to accomplish the research and transformative education necessary to create the innovation workforce to power emerging industries. I look forward to working with many of you on this critical challenge.
You can .
As always, I can be reached at: DeanPisano@ucsd.edu.
Sincerely,
Al
Albert ("Al") P. Pisano
Dean, Â鶹´«Ã½ Jacobs School of Engineering
Special Adviser to the Chancellor for Campus Strategic Initiatives