Faculty within the college's six academic departments exchange and interweave new ideas from discipline to discipline providing strength and dimension to each.

Computer scientists collaborate with electrical engineers in a jointly administered computer engineering program. Electrical engineers team with materials scientists in a new effort focusing on electronic materials. Materials scientists work with both civil engineers and chemical engineers to develop useful applications for composite materials. Chemical engineers are joining up with those in biosystems engineering in the bioprocessing of Michigan-grown produce. Mechanical engineers collaborate with physicists and chemists outside of the college to develop new, high-speed flow visualization methods for air-fuel mixing in internal combustion engines and for flow patterns in catalytic converters.