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The Department of Chemical Engineering offers two undergraduate programs: Chemical Engineering and Biochemical Engineering.

Biochemical Engineering Undergraduate Program

The Biochemical Engineering (BS) program is accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET under the commission's General Criteria and Program Criteria for Chemical, Biochemical, Biomolecular, and Similarly Named Engineering Programs.

As the biotechnology industry expands and matures, there is an increasing need for engineers who can move products from the research stage to large-scale manufacturing. As they fill this need, engineers must also understand the production, purification, and regulatory issues surrounding biopharmaceutical manufacturing.

Biochemical engineers—with their strong foundations in chemistry, biological sciences, and chemical process engineering—are in a unique position to tackle these problems. Biochemical engineers apply the principles of cell and molecular biology, biochemistry, and engineering to develop, design, scale up, optimize, and operate processes that use living cells, organisms, or biological molecules for the production and purification of products (such as monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, therapeutic proteins, antibiotics, and industrial enzymes); for health and/or environmental monitoring (such as diagnostic kits, microarrays, biosensors); or for environmental improvement (such as bioremediation). An understanding of biological processes is also becoming increasingly important in the industries that traditionally employ chemical engineers, including the industries that process materials, chemicals, foods, energy, fuels, and semiconductors.

Objectives

We educate students in the fundamentals of chemical and biochemical engineering, balanced with the application of these principles to practical problems; educate students as independent, critical thinkers who can also function effectively in a team; prepare students with a sense of community, ethical responsibility, and professionalism; prepare students for careers in industry, government, and academia; teach students the necessity for continuing education and self-learning; and foster proficiency in written and oral communications.

Students are encouraged to adhere carefully to all prerequisite requirements. The instructor is authorized to drop students from a course for which stated prerequisites have not been completed.

Honors Program

An Honors Program is available to qualified students in the Chemical Engineering & Biochemical Engineering majors It is a two-year program designed to challenge the most talented students in these majors. Students are invited to participate in their sophomore year. In the upper division coursework, students will complete either an honors thesis or a project that might involve local industry. Students must maintain a grade point average of 3.500 to continue in the program. Successful completion of the Honors Program will be acknowledged on the student's transcript.

The major requirements below are in addition to meeting University Degree Requirements & College Degree Requirements; unless otherwise noted. The minimum number of units required for the  Biochemical Engineering Bachelor of Science is 161.

¹

Acceptable science courses must carry one of the following subject designations: BIS, BIT, FST, MIC, MCB, NPB, PLB, PLS, STA, and VEN.

²

With the exception for ECH 198.