Profile of the Department of Fire Protection Engineering
The FPE undergraduate curriculum combines the fundamentals of engineering education required of all engineering students at the University of Maryland with specific courses in fire protection engineering, such as fire dynamics, fire modeling, structural fire protection, life safety and the design of fire suppression systems, fire detection and emergency communication systems and smoke control systems. The curriculum also includes a discussion of contemporary issues such as the fire properties of advanced materials, intelligent detectors and the search for new fire suppression agents.
The graduate program allows students with undergraduate engineering degrees to pursue a more in-depth study of engineering principles applied to areas such as fire modeling, hazard analysis and structural fire protection. In addition, the graduate program emphasizes advanced engineering analyses, computational tools and experimental methods. The M.S. and Ph.D. thesis contribute and advance many aspects of the field of fire protection engineering.
The department has an excellent international reputation, regularly receiving visiting delegations from many countries. The faculty is well recognized in the profession, routinely presenting invited papers at national and international meetings and symposia.
Current Full-time Faculty
Dr. James A. Milke, P.E., Professor and Chair
Dr. Marino diMarzo, Professor
Dr. Andre Marshall, Associate Professor
Dr. Arnaud Trouve, Associate Professor
Dr. Peter B. Sunderland, Associate Professor
Dr. Stanislav Stoiliarov, Assistant Professor
Dr. Michael Gollner, Assistant Professor
Research Faculty
Dr. Howard Baum, Glenn L. Martin Professor
Dr. Marc Nyden, Research Associate Professor
Emeritus Faculty
Dr. Vincent Brannigan, Professor Emeritus
Dr. John L. Bryan, Professor Emeritus
Dr. Frederick Mowrer, P.E., Associate Professor Emeritus
Dr. James Quintiere, Professor Emeritus
Dr. Steven Spivak, Professor Emeritus
Resources
The department has several experimental laboratories with an array of equipment, including some apparatus used in standard ASTM tests and also in the conduct of advanced research. The department also has computational facilities for fire simulations and analyses. These facilities are used in the undergraduate and graduate courses and also by students conducting research.
Alumni
The unique education received by more than 1,300 graduates from the department has resulted in a diverse range of professional opportunities in industry, insurance, federal, state or local government, the military, and the fire service. Today, University of Maryland educated Fire Protection Engineers are employed throughout the United States and in many countries. A recent survey indicates that 98 per cent of the graduates have remained within the profession.
Many of the Maryland graduates are actively engaged in the profession, making policy decisions that affect corporate or organizational policies and assist in the generation of codes, standards and guidelines that are used at the local, state and national level and also become referenced internationally. Maryland graduates are also helping to define fire protection engineering for future generations of engineers.
Notable alumni include:
- A past and current Vice President of NFPA
- Presidents of major fire protection engineering consulting companies, including RJA, Hughes Associates, Inc., Koffel Associates, Inc. Poole Fire Protection, Inc. and Code Consultants, Inc.
- Technical Director, SFPE
- Eight presidents of SFPE
- President of the International Association of Fire Safety Science
- Faculty at all three US schools that have fire protection engineering programs
Currently,
- 7 UM alumni are members of the Board of Directors of SFPE, 40 are Fellows
- 2 UM alumni are members of the NFPA Standards Council
- 1 UM alumnus is a member of the Board of Directors of NFPA
- 8 UM alumni are part of the UL Fire Council
In addition, UM alumni have participated on numerous NFPA and ICC (BOCA, SBCCI and ICBO) committees, state and local code authorities and Boards of Appeals. They have provided the technical justification of the model codes and continue to influence the direction of the code development process. Alumni include Fire and Building Code Officials in some of the largest and most influential cities and states throughout America and the Federal Government, including GSA and DoD. UM Alumni have provided much of the technical justification for changes to the codes on a state and national level and continue to influence the development, professionalism and direction of Fire Safety in general.