What is Fire Protection Engineering?
You've never heard of fire protection engineering? Well, you're not alone. Fire Protection engineering is one of the best kept secrets in research and education today.
Fire protection engineers apply science and engineering principles to protect life, property, business operations, the environment, and heritage from fire. The best engineers in the world bring their skills and talents to bear on this global problem. Grounded in disciplines such as mechanical, civil, structural, electrical, and chemical engineering and the sciences, they often work in teams to apply cutting edge research tools to address the new challenges of the 21st century. The threats of terrorist attacks, the safe use of new composite materials, the impact of natural disasters are just some of the challenges that today’s fire protection engineers are tackling.
Good paying jobs abound in business, government and industry... including consulting engineering firms, petrochemical industries, insurance companies, federal agencies, health care facilities, code enforcement agencies... and the list goes on. The number of jobs consistently outweighs the number of engineers available to fill them.
Fire protection engineers do fire experimentation and research. The perform risk analyses of major industrial facilities and consult with architects on buildings ranging from high rise structures to hospitals, hotels and sports stadiums. They engineer safe buildings, ships, trains, and other facilities
using the latest principles of performance based design. Fire protection engineers design egress systems based on human behavior and protective components such as fire sprinkler and alarm systems, exit and smoke control systems. They investigate fires and explosions, and assure safety in
diverse areas such as the NASA space program, and the US base in Antarctica.
And the good news is WPI offers one-of-a-kind degree programs for students pursuing degrees including a research based PhD and a master’s degree in fire protection engineering with or without a thesis. There is a special program for high school graduates... to give them the best possible credentials for entering this interesting and lucrative job market. It's the five year program, ending with a BS in one of the traditional engineering disciplines (e.g. mechanical, electrical, civil, chemical engineering) and the master's degree in fire protection engineering. Our unique distance learning program can lead to a master’s degree or a fire protection engineering graduate certificate.
Contact Professor Kathy A. Notarianni at the department of Fire Protection Engineering to find out more.
Maintained by webmaster@wpi.eduLast modified: January 22, 2008 09:36:54