Research
Boldly innovating to impact society and transform the world.
Northeastern University has achieved the prestigious recognition as a top-tier R1 institution for research activity among U.S. colleges and universities by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Our tradition of partnership and engagement guides a use-inspired and interdisciplinary research enterprise that is strategically aligned with three global imperatives: health, security, and sustainability. Our annual Annual Report highlights pioneering research and achievements over the past year.
The College of Engineering has over 240 tenured/tenure-track faculty, each bringing complementary areas of research expertise to address pressing global challenges. Their state-of-art-research looks at critical issues in materials, processes, systems, infrastructure, hardware and software at every scale—nano to macro to global—grounded in a translational approach that integrates the values of fundamental and applied research.
Our faculty boldly innovate by collaborating across engineering disciplines and the university, as well as with government, academia, and industry. The College of Engineering has more than 20 multidisciplinary research centers and institutes with funding from eight federal agencies. Our commitment to conducting transformative research to better the world can be seen by our growth in external research funding, which exceeds $100 million annually, and by an investment in research facilities such as our 223,000 square foot, six-story Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex and 367,000 square foot, eight-story EXP facility for teaching and research.
Research At-A-Glance
Related Resources
Understand how Northeastern partners with industry for research and workforce development
View the faculty directory for more information on individual researchers.
Recent News
Summit Explores Complex Risk Science
A one-day invitation-only summit event titled “Boston-Area Complex Risk Science: Exploring new Frontiers and a New Community for Understanding Risk,” was held on June 9, 2025, at Northeastern University. Summit sponsors included CEE Distinguished Professor Auroop Ganguly, who leads Northeastern University’s Sustainability and Data Sciences (SDS) Lab, as well as the Institute for Experiential AI, AI for Climate and Sustainability (AI4CaS), and Ryan McGranaghan, research scientist and data scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
SDS Lab Research Featured at Congressional Testimony
A written statement on research conducted by the Sustainability and Data Sciences Laboratory at Northeastern University (SDS Lab) led by Auroop Ganguly, distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering, was featured at the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Border Management, Federal Workforce and Regulatory Affairs, as part of a Congressional testimony presented on June 10, 2025.
Skalak Award Honorable Mention for Paper on Vascular Remodeling During Pregnancy
Ana I. Vargas, PhD’25, bioengineering, BioE Associate Professor Chiara Bellini and MIE Associate Professor Rouzbeh Amini received an Honorable Mention for the 2025 Skalak Award for their paper on “Vascular Remodeling During Late-Gestation Pregnancy: An In-Vitro Assessment of the Murine Ascending Thoracic Aorta.”
NSF CAREER Award To Develop Models for Human Trafficking Interdiction and Service Provision
MIE Assistant Professor Kayse Lee Maass received a $553,946 NSF CAREER award for “Multi-Agent Network Interdiction and Service Provision Models To Counter Human Trafficking.”