Carnegie Mellon University Miami
A New Campus. A New Model.
A Bold New Chapter.
Meet our boldest bet yet: Carnegie Mellon University Miami.
Planned for Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, CMU Miami will reimagine higher learning by inverting the traditional model. Teaching and research won’t be confined to isolated majors. Instead, education and research will be organized around consequential challenges that demand expertise across disciplines.
At launch, this model will focus education and research on four grand challenge areas: human health and biological discovery; national security and strategic capabilities; energy and climate resilience; and advanced manufacturing and industrial transformation.
A powerhouse in advanced computing, robotics, and machine learning, and home to a storied history in the arts and creative expression, Carnegie Mellon has the ambition, technical expertise, and rigor needed to lead as America enters a new era of innovation.
By bringing Carnegie Mellon’s expertise to Miami’s dynamic ecosystem, we can attract the world’s brightest minds, cultivate new partnerships with industry leaders, and prepare students to make immediate and real impact on their fields.
Conceptual rendering. Plans for the campus are subject to necessary regulatory approvals.
In launching Carnegie Mellon University Miami, we have the rare opportunity to reimagine what a great university can be in the age of emerging technology. Our answer is an institution that is purpose-built for academic excellence and discovery, grounded in human judgment and dedicated to impact at the scale society now demands.
Farnam Jahanian
President, Carnegie Mellon University
CMU Miami Leadership
Jignesh M. Patel will serve as the founding dean and vice president of CMU Miami.
A faculty member in CMU’s Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science, Patel has served as interim head of its Computer Science Department since 2025. He joined CMU in 2023 following appointments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Michigan.
Patel, a distinguished computer scientist, will shape the campus’ work, leading efforts to recruit top faculty and students, building partnerships across private and public sectors, and working to establish CMU Miami as a distinctive hub where bold ideas can move quickly from lab to widespread adoption. In the lead-up to CMU Miami’s launch, he helped to define the new campus's research portfolio, academic mission, educational direction and key societal priorities.
CMU Miami: Powered by the CMU Advantage
Carnegie Mellon brings decades of leadership in inventing transformative technologies and putting them to work in the world. Our deep expertise in advanced computing, AI, robotics, machine learning, and autonomy combines with strengths in science, business, policy, and the intersection of technology and society. An interdisciplinary culture grounded in human-centered values connects these capabilities, bridging discovery and application. CMU Miami will put this established research engine to work – at warp speed – to address society’s defining challenges and strengthen national competitiveness.
Several university deans and faculty members have contributed to the development of CMU Miami so far, including: Jignesh M. Patel, Amy Burkert, Illah R. Nourbakhsh, Jeff Schneider, Lujo Bauer, Keith Cook, Roni Rosenfeld, Jana Kainerstorfer, Costa Samaras, Neil Donahue, Vivian Loftness, Marsha Lovett, Tom Mitchell, Richard Scheines, Vincent Conitzer, Ariel Zetlin-Jones, Jose Moura, and John Lehoczky.
How CMU Miami Will Break the Higher Education Mold
It Starts With Problem Solving, Not Subject Silos
CMU Miami will organize learning and inquiry around societal challenges rather than academic majors alone. Disciplines still matter. But the biggest breakthroughs happen when students and faculty can move across them.
It Recognizes That Technology is Powerful, but Human Judgment is Essential
AI and emerging technologies are reshaping how people learn, work and discover–and the pace and scale of change is unprecedented. At CMU Miami, advanced computing will be combined with science, engineering, policy, business, design, the arts and humanities because cutting-edge technologies require human talent.
It’s Built for the Pace of Today
CMU Miami is both unmistakably Carnegie Mellon and something new–a campus that will be designed from the ground up to meet the pace of change in the age of advanced technology.
CMU Miami's Education Committee
A university-wide education committee, composed of faculty and academic leaders, is charged with developing the campus’ academic vision and roadmap.
CMU Miami represents a generational opportunity to build a new center of research and intellectual life — one that will attract exceptional students, scholars and researchers from across the globe and rank among the world’s most important academic institutions.
Ken Griffin
Founder and CEO, Citadel; Founder, Griffin Catalyst
A Historic Investment
Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin has committed more than $3 billion – the largest individual philanthropic investment in higher education – to Carnegie Mellon University. This gift includes $2 billion to support the launch of CMU Miami and $1 billion for CMU’s campus in Pittsburgh, split evenly between the campus’s highest priorities and its School of Computer Science. This school, which will be renamed the Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science, is the No. 1 ranked computer science school in the nation.
Conceptual rendering. Plans for the campus are subject to necessary regulatory approvals.
Why Miami?
Miami brings people, cultures and ideas together from around the world. For a university that thrives on connecting different perspectives, that is an extraordinary environment.
Miami’s international connections provide a gateway to the Western hemisphere. This is an opportunity to bring more talent and perspectives into our work, and to connect CMU students and discoveries with more of the world.
Pittsburgh is the foundation that makes this possible. Miami opens a new horizon for what CMU can achieve. Connecting the two will create opportunities that strengthen the entire university, help expand the region’s existing capacity for innovation, and create more opportunities for local students.
Benefits to Pittsburgh
One billion dollars will support CMU in Pittsburgh, split equally between the university’s highest priorities and the Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science.
Pittsburgh remains the heart of Carnegie Mellon. Everything CMU will build in Miami grows from the talent, creativity and decades of work in Pittsburgh, combined with Miami's established higher education ecosystem. The ambition is to strengthen our home campus and create new opportunities in Miami and across the entire global university.
Five Things to Know About Miami’s Wynwood Neighborhood
Wynwood is a small neighborhood in Miami, just north of downtown. Known internationally for its murals and galleries, it has evolved from an industrial and immigrant neighborhood into an arts destination, entrepreneurial hub and rapidly growing mixed-use district.
1. It was Miami’s garment district before it was known for art.
Wynwood’s warehouses date to the 1920s, when Jewish immigrant families built large garment and textile factories there. By the mid-20th century, it had grown into one of the country’s largest garment manufacturing hubs. Its factory jobs drew a large Puerto Rican community that shaped Wynwood beginning in the 1940s and ‘50s and led to its nickname “Little San Juan” and “El Barrio.”
2. Artists gave its warehouses a second life.
After manufacturing declined in the late 20th century, many of Wynwood’s industrial buildings sat vacant. Beginning in the early 2000s, artists, galleries and creative entrepreneurs repurposed those spaces. In 2009, Wynwood Walls, one of the largest outdoor mural collections in the world, helped establish the neighborhood as a destination for street art.
3. It became a gathering place for Miami’s emerging technology community.
The creative activity that drew people to Wynwood also helped make it a home for entrepreneurs. The LAB Miami opened a coworking and startup hub in a former warehouse in 2012, giving the city’s emerging technology community a place to gather, collaborate and build companies.
4. Investment and established companies followed.
Over time, Wynwood attracted venture builders, investors and global technology companies alongside its homegrown startups. Spotify’s decision to establish a South Florida operation there, followed by Amazon’s plans for office space in the neighborhood, reflected its growth as a business and technology district.
5. Its rapid change makes it a case study in urban development.
Wynwood's evolution from an industrial, working-class immigrant neighborhood to a globally recognized arts district and business hub — led by private investors and entrepreneurs who saw potential in its empty warehouses — is cited as an example of arts-led revitalization.
On the Record
Hear what others are saying about the launch of CMU Miami.
CMU Miami at a Glance
Location: A 35-acre campus in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, one of the city’s most creative, and entrepreneurial districts.
Scale: Once complete, CMU Miami is expected to support more than 3,500 undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. students, nearly 300 faculty and over 600 staff members.
Timeline: Construction is slated to begin in 2027 with the first graduate students enrolling – pending the necessary regulatory approvals – in 2028.
