Massachusetts Institute of Technology, course lectures

The School of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was established in 1932 as part of the reorganization of the Institute recommended by President Karl Taylor Compton. The departments that became part of the School of Science were: Biology and Public Health (which in 1942 became the Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, and in 1945 the Department of Biology); Chemistry; Geology (which in 1952 became the Department of Geology and Geophysics, in 1969 the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and in 1983 the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences); Mathematics; Physics; and Military Science and Tactics (which in 1933 became part of the Division of Humanities). The Department of General Science and Engineering was part of the School of Science from 1933 until it was discontinued in 1959.

In 1945 the Program in Food Technology was separated from the Department of Biology and Biomedical Engineering and became the Department of Food Technology (in 1960 the name changed to the Department of Nutrition, Food Science, and Technology, in 1963 to the Department of Nutrition and Food Science, and in 1985 to the Department of Applied Biological Sciences). In 1988 the department was disbanded. In 1957 the Department of Meteorology moved from the School of Engineering to the School of Science (in 1981 it became the Department of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography, and in 1983, part of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences). In 1994 the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences was moved from the Whitaker College of Health Sciences and Technology to the School of Science.

MIT History, School of Science, 2020.

The School of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was established in 1932 as part of the reorganization of the Institute recommended by President Karl Taylor Compton. As the largest of MIT’s three schools and two divisions at that time, the School of Engineering brought together the Department of Building Engineering and Construction (which became part of the Department of Civil and Sanitary Engineering in 1934); the Department of Business Engineering and Administration (which in 1950 separated from the school to become the School of Industrial Management); the Department of Chemical Engineering; the Department of Civil and Sanitary Engineering (which in 1961 became the Department of Civil Engineering and in 1992 changed its name to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering); the Department of Electrical Engineering (which in 1975 became the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science); the Department of Mechanical Engineering; the Department of Mining and Metallurgy (which split in 1936 into two departments: Mining Engineering, which was discontinued in 1940, and Metallurgy, which became the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Science in 1967, and then the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in 1974); the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering (which became the Department of Ocean Engineering in 1971, later merged into the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2005); the Department of General Sciences and Engineering (which was discontinued in 1957); and the Department of Nuclear Engineering (which was established in 1958 and in 2004 changed its name to the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering). The School of Engineering added the Department of Aeronautics in 1939 (it became the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1959) and two interdisciplinary divisions: Bioengineering and Environmental Health and the Engineering Systems Division in 1998. The latter division was renamed Biological Engineering in 2002 and became a department in 2007.

On July 1, 2012, the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science was launched, with Arup K. Chakraborty as director. IMES is based administratively in the School of Engineering, but includes participation from across MIT. The Institute for Data, Systems, and Society was officially established on July 1, 2015, with Munther Dahleh as its first director. IDSS is also based in the School of Engineering, but spans all five MIT schools and offers a range of cross-disciplinary academic programs.

MIT History, School of Engineering, 2020.