Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology and began granting four-year degrees. In 1967, it became Carnegie Mellon University through its merger with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, founded in 1913 by Andrew Mellon and Richard B. Mellon and formerly a part of the University of Pittsburgh.

The university consists of seven colleges, including the College of Engineering, the School of Computer Science, the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Tepper School of Business. The university has its main campus located 5 miles (8.0 km) from downtown Pittsburgh. It also has over a dozen degree-granting locations on six continents, including campuses in Qatar, Silicon Valley, and Kigali, Rwanda (Carnegie Mellon University Africa) and partnerships with universities nationally and globally. Carnegie Mellon enrolls 15,818 students across its multiple campuses from 117 countries and employs more than 1,400 faculty members. Carnegie Mellon is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".

Carnegie Mellon competes in NCAA Division III athletics as a founding member of the University Athletic Association. Carnegie Mellon fields eight men's teams and nine women's teams as the Tartans. The university's faculty and alumni include 21 Nobel Prize laureates and 13 Turing Award winners and have received 142 Emmy Awards, 64 Tony Awards, and 13 Academy Awards.

The Carnegie Technical Schools were founded in 1900 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by the Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who wrote "My heart is in the work", when he donated the funds to create the institution. Carnegie's vision was to open a vocational training school for the sons and daughters of working-class Pittsburghers, many of whom worked in his mills. Carnegie was inspired for the design of his school by the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, founded by industrialist Charles Pratt in 1887. In 1912, the institution changed its name to Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) and began offering four-year degrees. During this time, CIT consisted of four constituent schools: the School of Fine and Applied Arts, the School of Apprentices and Journeymen, the School of Science and Technology, and the Margaret Morrison Carnegie School for Women.

The Mellon Institute of Industrial Research was founded in 1913 by banker and industrialist brothers Andrew Mellon (who went on to become U.S. Treasury Secretary) and Richard B. Mellon in honor of their father, Thomas Mellon, patriarch of the Mellon family. The Institute began as a research organization that performed contract work for government and industry, initially as a department within the University of Pittsburgh. In 1927, the Mellon Institute was incorporated as an independent nonprofit. In 1937, the Mellon Institute's iconic building was completed on Fifth Avenue.

In 1967, with support from Paul Mellon, the Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to become Carnegie Mellon University. In 1973, Carnegie Mellon's coordinate women's college, the Margaret Morrison Carnegie College, merged its academic programs with the rest of the university. The industrial research mission of the Mellon Institute survived the merger as the Carnegie Mellon Research Institute (CMRI) and continued doing work on contract to industry and government. In 2001, CMRI's programs were subsumed by other parts of the university or spun off into autonomous entities.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the tenure of president Richard Cyert (1972–1990) witnessed a period of growth and development. The research budget grew from roughly $12 million annually in the early 1970s to more than $110 million in the late 1980s. Researchers in new fields like robotics and software engineering helped the university to build its reputation. One example was the introduction of the "Andrew" computing network in the mid-1980s. This project linking all computers and workstations on campus set the standard for educational computing and established Carnegie Mellon as a technology leader in education and research. On April 24, 1985, cmu.edu, Carnegie Mellon's Internet domain, became one of the first six .edu domain names.

In the 1990s and into the 2000s, Carnegie Mellon solidified its status among American universities, consistently ranking in the top 25 in the national U.S. News & World Report rankings, and in the top 30 (ranking 28th in 2022) amongst universities worldwide. Carnegie Mellon is distinct in its interdisciplinary approach to research and education. Through the establishment of programs and centers outside the limitations of departments or colleges, the university has established leadership in fields such as computational finance, information systems, cognitive sciences, management, arts management, product design, behavioral economics, energy science and economics, human–computer interaction, entertainment technology, and decision science.