Coordinates: 40°26′36″N 79°56′37″W / 40.443322°N 79.943583°W / 40.443322; -79.943583 Carnegie Mellon University (also known as CMU or simply Carnegie Mellon) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university began as the Carnegie Technical Schools, founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1900. In 1912, the school became Carnegie Institute of Technology and began granting four-year degrees. In 1967, the Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to form Carnegie Mellon University. The University’s 140-acre (0.57 km2) main campus is 3 miles (4.8 km) from Downtown Pittsburgh and abuts the campus of the University of Pittsburgh in the city's Oakland neighborhood, partially extending into Squirrel Hill.

Carnegie Mellon has seven colleges and independent schools: the Carnegie Institute of Technology (engineering), the College of Fine Arts, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Mellon College of Science, the Tepper School of Business, the School of Computer Science, and the H. John Heinz III College.

Since its inception, the university has grown into a world-renowned institution, with numerous programs that are featured prominently in university rankings. In the most recent release of the Top 200 World Universities by Times Higher Education, Carnegie Mellon was ranked 21st overall and 6th in technology. In the 2009, U.S. News & World Report ranked Carnegie Mellon's undergraduate program 22nd in the nation amongst national research universities, and in the 2010 edition its graduate programs in Computer Science 4th, Engineering 6th, Business 15th, Public Policy 10th, Fine Arts 7th, and Psychology 17th.