Dean's Message
Revisioning Engineering
May 2026
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Who will we be five years from now? I raised this question at my recent meeting of the Dean’s Council of Advisors for the Jacobs School of Engineering here at UC San Diego.
Why am I asking that question now? The Jacobs School rose in the rankings to #9 in the nation last month, and our research expenditures are up year over year.
The reason why I am unwilling to rest on our laurels is the broader context: we are facing unprecedented market pressures. These will require proactive action.
AI is changing both the job market and the educational experience; the nature of work is changing overall; affordability pressures in education are growing; government-university relationships continue to shift; and the importance of public-private partnerships in engineering and computer science continues to rise.
As an engineering dean, I know the Jacobs School has the ability to define who it will be five years from now. We have the talent and the domain knowledge to work proactively in the face of these market forces to ensure that we continue to deliver on our mission to advance engineering and computer science to improve lives and solve tough challenges facing society.
We may not currently have all the answers to the questions that the market forces are pushing us to ask. But we do have the technical capacity, creativity, expertise and collaborative energies that allow us a revisioning that spans our efforts in engineering and computer science education, workforce development, research and entrepreneurship.
We have a playbook, and it is straightforward. We will autodisrupt where needed, make proactive pivots, implement and evaluate those necessary changes, and then attract the resources required to scale up what works. I call this endeavor Revisioning Engineering.
This work builds on real strengths already present across the Jacobs School, including healthcare engineering, future biomanufacturing, fusion engineering, semiconductors, and our early leadership in AI tutors and AI education.
At our recent council meeting, for example, computer science department chair Steven Swanson outlined the AI major and our AI Tutor projects. Electrical and computer engineering chair Pamela Cosman described AI-at-the-edge projects across the department and the School.
As we move forward with Revisioning Engineering, we will be asking ourselves more and more fundamental questions. Are we preparing students for the new nature of work? Are our graduates ready to shape AI systems rather than be shaped by them? Are we operating as an effective School, one that realigns internal resources in ways that attract external resources?
We are not seeking abstract answers to these questions. We are determined to surface practical solutions to enhance our ability to advance relevant engineering and computer science education, research and entrepreneurship in the national interest.
I look forward to engaging you — our internal Jacobs School community and our broader community of constituents — regarding this essential endeavor. As always, I can be reached at DeanPisano@ucsd.edu.
You can read our full May 2026 Jacobs School news email online here.
Sincerely,
Al
Albert (“Al”) P. Pisano
Dean, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering
Special Adviser to the Chancellor for Campus Strategic Initiatives