Mechanical Engineering. Spiraling product costs and margin pressures are challenging the mechanical engineering industry to reinvent itself. Looking beyond the traditional approach to engineering, intensifying focus on R&D, leveraging new technologies, and enabling faster, better, and more cost-effective product development is imperative to remain competitive. Mechanical engineering covers a wide range of activities, including research in dynamics, fluids, materials, solids, and thermodynamics. Research is strongly interdisciplinary, with many connections to Applied Mathematics, Applied Physics, Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Chemistry and Chemical Biology.