Department of Aerospace Engineering

Aerospace Engineering Graduate Program

The Department of Aerospace Engineering offers master of engineering, master of science, and doctor of philosophy degrees in aerospace engineering.

Get Paid to Learn

Research assistantships and teaching assistantships are available to qualified students to help offset the cost of graduate education. In addition, there are graduate scholarships and fellowships available to highly qualified students.

In the Aerospace Engineering department, most of the graduate students receive either a Teaching Assistant (TA) position or a Research Assistant (RA) position, which provides a stipend and covers a percentage or all of their tuition.  Graduate students in the Aerospace Engineering department also have access to computers in their offices, and for advanced research applications there are high-end server computers available.

For more information, see Financial Aid for Graduate Students.

Admission to Graduate Study

The Graduate Admissions Office handles all admissions to Iowa State graduate programs. Graduate information is available from the Admissions page from the Graduate College.

You may also contact the college by mail:

Graduate Admissions Office
100 Alumni Hall
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011-3232

Prerequisites

The prerequisite for graduate study is the equivalent of a BS degree in engineering. However, because of the diversity of research in aerospace engineering, it is possible to qualify for graduate study even though undergraduate or prior graduate study has been in a discipline other than engineering, e.g., physics or mathematics.  You may, however, need to take additional courses in aerospace engineering, to make up background deficiencies..

Graduate Handbook

Program of Study

Degree Requirements

Courses

For course descriptions, see the ISU catalog. Graduate courses include the following:

  • Aer E 514. Advanced Mechanics of Materials
  • Aer E 517. Experimental Stress Analysis
  • Aer E 521. Airframe Analysis
  • Aer E 524. Numerical Mesh Generation
  • Aer E 525. Finite Element Analysis
  • Aer E 531. Automatic Control of Flight Vehicles
  • Aer E 532. Compressible Fluid Flow
  • Aer E 541. Incompressible Flow Aerodynamics
  • Aer E 543. Viscous Flow Aerodynamics
  • Aer E 544. Applied Wing Theory
  • Aer E 545X Advance Experimental Techniques for Thermal-Fluid Studies
  • Aer E 546. Computational Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer I
  • Aer E 547. Computational Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer II
  • Aer E 551. Orbital Mechanics
  • Aer E 556. Guidance and Navigation of Aerospace Vehicles
  • Aer E 565. Systems Engineering and Analysis
  • Aer E 566. Avionics Systems Engineering
  • Aer E 569. Mechanics of Composite and Combined Materials
  • Aer E 570. Wind Engineering
  • Aer E 572. Turbulence
  • Aer E 573. Random Signal Analysis and Kalman Filtering
  • Aer E 574. Optimal Control
  • Aer E 575. Introduction to Robust Control
  • Aer E 576. Digital Feedback Control Systems
  • Aer E 577. Linear Systems
  • Aer E 578. Nonlinear Systems
  • Aer E 581. Perturbation Methods
  • Aer E 635. Optimization in Aerospace Engineering
  • Aer E 641. Hypersonic Gas Dynamics
  • Aer E 646. Computational Methods for Internal and Low Speed Flows
  • Aer E 647. Advanced High Speed Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Aer E 662. Viscous Flow Asymptotic Theory
  • Aer E 697. Engineering Internship

Research in Aerospace Engineering

The department has active and diverse research programs in many areas, with annual expenditures of $9 million.

Learn more about

Facilities

The department is part of an impressive $31 million research complex. Research facilities include laboratories for experimental work in low speed aero dynamics, ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation, wind engineering, composite material fabrication and testing, and structural materials testing. Learn more about our research facilities.

Centers

Our interdisciplinary research centers provide opportunities for innovative and cutting-edge research:

Learn More

For more information, contact one of the following: