History of the Department

the chairs of the department over time

The Civil Engineering program at Princeton has a long and rich history. Civil engineering was first taught at Princeton in 1875 by Charles McMillan and was one of the founding departments of the School of Engineering in 1921. It has been continuously accredited since 1936. Between 1966 and 1974, the department was named Civil and Geological Engineering, and between 1981 and 1999 it was known as Civil Engineering and Operations Research. In 1999, the department was divided, and the operations research faculty left to form the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering. It was then that the department was named Civil and Environmental Engineering.