The Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering has made a long-term commitment to emphasize a biological component in its curriculum. The increasing importance of biological and medical subjects within the field of engineering cannot be underestimated. Many of the remarkable breakthroughs in medical science can be directly attributed to advances in chemicals, materials, and devices spearheaded by biochemical and biomedical engineers. Currently, biomedical engineering represents the fastest growing engineering discipline in the U.S., and it is likely to continue as such. The biomedical/biotechnology industries are also the fastest growing of all current industries that employ engineers. Training in biological and biomedical engineering provides an excellent background for graduate and/or medical school, especially in light of the increasing technological complexity of medical education.The Department currently offers the Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Chemical Engineering with three major options (Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Chemical-Materials Engineering). The BS degree takes between four and five years to complete. The undergraduate curriculum emphasizes the application of experimental and computer analysis to classical chemical engineering principles. This includes laboratory instruction in modern, state-of-the-art facilities in the transport phenomena, unit operations, and process control laboratories. Students are instructed in and utilize state-of-the-art computational programs such as MATLAB, Simulink, Aspen, and COMSOL Multiphysics.
The vision of the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering as an educational unit is to be recognized as a place of excellence in fundamental and applied chemical and biomedical engineering education and life-long learning, and to maintain a national research leadership in modern areas of engineering challenge. To attain this vision, the department realizes that it has to continually satisfy its major stakeholders: students, industrial employers, alumni, departmental faculty, the college, the universities, the community, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc. (ABET), and other professional societies. Chemical engineering encompasses the development, application, and operation of processes in which chemical, biological, and/or physical changes of material are involved. The work of the chemical engineer is to analyze, develop, design, control, construct, and/or supervise chemical processes in research and development, pilot-scale operations, and industrial protection. Chemical engineers are employed in the manufacture of inorganic chemicals (e.g., acids, alkalis, pigments, fertilizers), organic chemicals (e.g., petrochemicals, polymers, fuels, propellants, pharmaceuticals, specialty chemicals), biological products (e.g., enzymes, vaccines, biochemicals, biofuels), and materials (e.g., ceramics, polymeric materials, paper, biomaterials). The graduate in chemical engineering is particularly versatile. Industrial work may involve production, operation, research, and development. Graduate education in medicine, dentistry, and law, as well as chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, and other engineering and scientific disciplines are viable alternatives for the more accomplished graduate.
Chemical-Materials Engineering. Chemical engineers have extensively developed and studied the molecular structures and dynamics of materialsincluding solids, liquids, and gasesin order to develop macroscopic descriptions of the behavior of such materials. In turn, these macroscopic descriptions have allowed the construction and analysis of unit processes that facilitate desired chemical and physical changes. This constant interplay between molecular scale understanding and macroscopic descriptions is unique and central to the field of chemical engineering.