The goal of the Materials Science program is to provide a student who has a background in engineering or physical science with the knowledge of materials science and engineering necessary for work in the fields of structural and non-structural materials for aerospace systems. Such positions may range from those requiring very detailed and advanced level work in a specific discipline to those involving broad responsibilities and requiring interaction among many disciplines. 

The Materials Science program is under joint supervision of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (ENY) and the Department of Engineering Physics (ENP). This program is normally six quarters in length. Five quarters are devoted to coursework, and one quarter is devoted to thesis research.

The program provides core preparation in thermodynamics and kinetics of materials, mechanical, electronic, and optical properties of materials, material characterization, material selection and processing, and mathematics. The materials studies emphasize atomic models of structure, composition and properties. Each student is also required to take an in-depth study and perform research either in structural materials (metallic, composite, polymer, ceramics, etc.) or non-structural materials (electronics, optical, magnetic, dielectric, nanoscale, nuclear, etc.). Emphasis is placed on applications of fundamental knowledge to the design, development, test, and evaluation of materials for Air Force and DOD systems. The student will master at least one specialty area in optical materials, electronic materials, dielectric materials, magnetic materials, nanoscale materials, nuclear materials, or computational materials science.