The National University of Engineering (Spanish: Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería, UNI) is a public engineering and science university located in the Rímac District of Lima, Peru.
The National University of Engineering was founded in 1876 by the Polish engineer Edward Jan Habich as the School of Civil Constructions and Mining Engineers (Spanish: Escuela de Ingenieros de Construcciones Civiles y de Minas), but has traditionally been known as School of Engineers (Escuela de Ingenieros). At the time of its foundation, there was a growing demand for engineers in Peru due to the rapid development of mining and communications.
Today, the National University of Engineering is widely regarded as the foremost science and technology oriented university in Perú, many of its alumni occupying today positions of leadership in the fields of Industry, Academia and Government.
UNI is organized into eleven faculties which contain twenty-seven academic departments. It is a university polarized around science, engineering, and the arts. Most of the academic departments offer a wide variety of engineering specialties, including Industrial, Mechanic, Mechatronic, Electronic Engineering, and other innovative fields more related to the Social Sciences such as Economic Engineering.
Current admission is highly competitive, with 20 applicants per vacancy in the most demanding fields such as Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Systems Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Mechatronic Engineering.
UNI is widely known for being rigorous, demanding great focus and effort from its students. Given the competition level to be accepted to the National University of Engineering and its highly demanding curricula, the university is commonly acknowledged as the most difficult to attend in the whole country. This has given UNI students recognition among Peruvians, but it has also created an imbalance sometimes regarding GPA's as compared to other schools, those of UNI's students being in some occasions lower due to the difficulty level being harder.
Among former renowned professors and students are:
Fernando Belaúnde Terry, former President of Peru (1963–1968, 1980-5).Alberto Benavides de la Quintana. Mining Engineer, 1941. Master of Science in Geology at Harvard University. Founder of [Compañía de Minas Buenaventura http://www.buenaventura.com.pe/]. Has been chairman of several institutions as Sociedad Geológica del Perú (Peruvian Geological Society)(1961–1963 and 1974–1975), Instituto Científico Tecnológico Minero (1975–1976) (Mining Technology Scientific Institute), INGEMMET (1980–1985), Banco Central de Reserva del Perú (Peru Central Reserve Bank), COFIDE.Miguel De La Torre Sobrevilla, founder and CEO of Geoservice Ingeniería. Former president of the board of directors of International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) in Peru.Francisco Sagasti, former Planning manager at the World Bank. Former President of the Consultive Council of Science and Technology for Development in the United Nations., visiting professor of the Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania. [1]Ronald Woodman Pollit, physicist, executive president of Instituto Geofísico del Perú. Woodman is a winner of the Appleton prize for "major contributions and leadership in the radar studies of the ionospheric and neutral atmosphere". Besides his many contributions to equatorial incoherent scatter science, he created the entire field of mesosphere, stratosphere and troposphere wind profile measurements with VHF radars. His distinguished career has spanned leadership assignments in a number of universities and scientific institutions around the world. He has been a mentor to a number of distinguished Peruvian scientists and a leader in promoting investment in science and technology in Peru. [2]Jorge Heraud Pérez, inventor of Peru's first automated robot: Digito and Stanford University PhD.Felipe Ortiz de Zevallos, founder of [Grupo Apoyo http://www.apoyo.com/] -a Peruvian think tank-, former Rector of the Universidad del Pacifico and actual Ambassador of Peru in the United States of AmericaBarton Zwiebach Cantor, string theorist, author of "A First Course in String Theory" and Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also was awarded with the MIT School of Science 2003 Teaching Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Education [3]Mario R. Barbacci is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), he was the founding chairman of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 10.2 (Computer Descriptions and Tools) and has served as Vice-President for Technical Activities of the IEEE Computer Society, founding chairman of the Joint IEEE Computer Society/ACM Steering Committee for the Establishment of Software Engineering as a Profession. He was 1996 President of the IEEE Computer Society, 1998-1999 IEEE Division V Director, and IEEE Technical Activities Board Strategic Planning and Research Committee 2000-2002. Barbacci is the recipient of several IEEE Computer Society Outstanding Contribution Certificates, the ACM Recognition of Service Award, and the IFIP Silver Core Award. Barbacci received bachelor's and engineer's degrees in electrical engineering from the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria, and a doctorate in computer science from Carnegie-Mellon University.Pedro Medelius Olcese, an electrical engineer at Kennedy Space Center and a graduate of the University of Florida, recently was presented with NASA's Silver Snoopy Award for service to the Space Shuttle astronauts. [4]Enrique Ciriani, architect, he receives the Grand Prix National d'Architecture of France in 1983 and also the Arnold Brunner Memorial Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1997.César Gonzales, an IBM Fellow at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center and also a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He is an expert in digital image and video technologies having contributed to the development of the widely used MPEG-2 video compression standard. He also led the development of advanced semiconductor chips based on this standard which IBM sold in the digital TV broadcast and consumer electronics markets. [5]César Camacho Manco, mathematician, Director of Instituto Nacional de Matematica Pura e Aplicada (National Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics), the most important mathematical institution in Brazil. He solved the "separatrix theorem", a complex dynamical problem with 150 years without solution.Edgar Perez, He is the author of The Speed Traders and Knightmare on Wall Street, and has been featured internationally on high-frequency trading, financial regulation and international economics.Carlos PomalazaJulio KuroiwaLuis Reyes Carrasco
