The Tulane University graduate program in Materials Physics and Engineering (MPEN) is an interdisciplinary program that focuses on the fundamentals of material structure, material properties, material processing, and material modeling that are required to solve the complex technological problems in the 21st century, especially in the focus areas of nanotechnology, energy, environment healthcare, and homeland security/defense. The Tulane MPEN program is unique and unlike other graduate programs in materials science and engineering in that this program is based on a core foundation of physics enabling a student to appreciate the aforementioned materials interplay found in every new functional material discovered or developed. Modeling will allow students to handle “big data”, find optimized materials for new applications, and design engineering materials where the goal is integration and synthesis within and across these domains.