Bringing together faculty experts from ICS and engineering, the one-year full-time master’s program will enroll its initial class this fall.

UC Irvine will be the first university in the U.S. to offer a professional master’s in embedded and cyber-physical systems (MECPS). Set to enroll its inaugural class of students this fall, the one-year full-time master’s program will train students in the foundation, skills and hands-on practices of embedded and cyber-physical systems design, optimization and evaluation.

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are a broad range of complex, multidisciplinary, engineered systems that integrate embedded computing technologies (sensors and actuators) and computational algorithms into the physical world. These systems are entrenched in almost every aspect of our daily life. Information technology researchers forecast that by 2020, upwards of 20.8 billion connected things will be in use worldwide. Devices will connect our homes, buildings, factories, cars, transportation infrastructure and even our bodies to the internet. This Internet of Things will drive an economy expected to account for $6-14 trillion into the next decade.

“These numbers give us confidence that graduates who are trained in this domain will not have trouble finding jobs, and ones with high paying salaries,” said Fadi Kurdahi, founding director of the MECPS program, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and the Samueli School of Engineering associate dean of graduate and professional studies.

Faculty in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) will teach the courses. ICS faculty involved with program include computer science professors Elaheh Bozorgzadeh,Nikil Dutt, Tony Givargis, Ian G. Harris, Marco Levarato, Alex Nicolau, Gene Tsudik and Alex Veindebaum.

Applicants interested in the MECPS program should have a bachelor’s degree in either computer engineering, computer science or electrical engineering. The interdisciplinary program will prepare graduates for jobs in a variety of industries: electronics, aerospace, automotive/transportation, biomedical, manufacturing, robotics, security, defense, civil infrastructure and construction.

Applications are now being accepted, and the university hopes to enroll 30 in its inaugural class. For more information, visit mecps.uci.edu.

Original story by Lori Brandt from the School of Engineering.