Stanford encourages close collaboration with companies and welcomes industry participation in our research. Mechanical Engineering has several Affiliate Programs that facilitate knowledge and technology transfer between industry and academia.
Learn more about the benefits of joining an affiliate program
Center for Design Research Affiliates Program
The Center for Design Research (CDR) is a community of scholars focused on understanding and augmenting engineering design innovation practice and education. We are dedicated to facilitating individual creativity, understanding the team design process, and developing advanced tools and methods that promote superior design and manufacturing of products. We develop concepts and technical solutions for design thinking, concurrent engineering, distributed collaborative design and design knowledge reuse.
Center for Automotive Research at Stanford Affiliates Program
Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS) is an interdisciplinary research community at Stanford University. CARS' vision is that by creating a community of faculty and students from a range of disciplines at Stanford who collaborate with leading industry researchers, we can radically re-envision the automobile for unprecedented levels of safety, performance and enjoyment. Our mission is to develop ideas and discover, build and deploy critical innovations for the next generation of cars and drivers.
Through membership in the CARS Affiliates Program, companies join the automotive community at Stanford. Membership funds enrich this community by providing support for an executive director, administrative support, shared infrastructure for research and teaching, student project teams and new educational initiatives.
Industry Affiliate Program for Teaching Design Thinking
Membership in this program gives industry representatives the opportunity for close association with the faculty and students in one of the nation's most highly regarded design education programs.
Thermal and Fluid Sciences Affiliates and Sponsors Program
The Thermal and Fluid Sciences Affiliates Program (TFSA) is the industrial liaison program of the Thermosciences Group and Flow Physics and Computation Group. This long-standing program serves as a two-way conduit for recent research findings and industrial problems that motivate new research.