We are dedicated to discovering and applying engineering principles and methods to the processes of our natural world and to the advanced graduate education of engineering professionals. From solar drying and pasteurization research in the 1970's to today's emphasis on biological waste analysis and treatment, chemical transport through soils, food engineering, bioenergy, bioproducts, and more, our department has had a long history of technical environmental stewardship, research and education. While recognizing that clean air, land and water are the ultimate goals, we have worked on answering the difficult details of what constitutes clean air, land, and water and what solutions are technically and economically possible.
Program Descriptions
The Department of
Biological Systems Engineering currently offers graduate programs in the following five general emphasis areas.
- Biomass Processing and Bioproducts Engineering: Develop engineering processes to produce useful, high-value products from the byproducts of agricultural operations and other sources of plant biomass.
- Food engineering: The application of engineering to the production of safe, nutritious food.
- Land, Air, Water, and Environmental Engineering (LAWREE): Engineering applications related to hydrologic processes at the field level or at the scale of large water sheds. Application of engineering and biological principles to the study the environmental impact of managed biological systems, including agriculture, confined animal operations, aquaculture, and natural resources.
- Bio-Environmental engineering: Application of engineering and biological principles to the study of the environmental impact of managed biological systems, including agriculture, confined-animal operations, aquaculture, and natural resources.
- Agricultural Automation: Develop engineering solutions for processes and equipment to meet the needs in specialty crop production.
All Emphasis Areas: M.S. Program:
BSYSE 512 -- Research and Teaching Methods
BSYSE 541 -- Instrumentation and Measurements
Ph.D. Program:
BSYSE 512 -- Research and Teaching Methods
BSYSE 541 -- Instrumentation and Measurements
STAT 512 -- Analysis of Variance of Designed Experiments
Three credits of mathematics beyond Differential Equations. You may choose from:
MATH 540 -- Applied Mathematics I
MATH 548 -- Numerical Analysis
(Or other courses approved by your advisor)
Land, Air, Water, and Environmental Engineering (LAWREE) Requirements Core Courses :
M.S. students can choose two from the three core courses while
BSYSE 556 -- Surface Hydrologic Processes and Modeling
BSYSE 5XX -- Nutrient Cycling and Transport (in preparation)
BSYSE 595 -- Ground-water Flow and Contaminant Transpor
Suggested Elective Courses:
BSYSE 555 -- Natural Systems for Wastewater Treatment
BSYSE 557 -- Watershed Modeling and Managemen
BSYSE 562 -- Cropping Systems Modeling (To be revised )
SOILS 513 -- Soil Physics
SOILS 514 -- Environmental Biophysics
SOILS 515 -- Environmental Biophysics Laboratory
SOILS 521 -- Environmental Soil Chemistry
SOILS 523 -- Advanced Vadose Zone Hydrology
CE 517 -- Mechanics of Sediment Transport
CE 518 -- Hazardous Waste Engineering
CE 527 -- Advanced Soil Mechanics
CE 551 -- Open Channel Flow
CE 552 -- Advanced Topics in Hydraulic Engineering
CE 571 -- Meteorology
GEOL 569 -- Hydrogeology Methods (with lab)
GEOL 579 -- Groundwater Geochemistry
GEOL 58 4 -- Stable Isotope Geochemistry
ME 521 -- Fundamentals of Fluids I
ME 522 -- Fundamentals of Fluids II
Food Engineering Requirements Core Courses :
M.S. Program :
BSYSE 581 -- Advanced Physical Properties of Foods
BSYSE 58 2 -- Food Process Engineering Design
BSYSE 584 -- Thermal Processing of Foods
Ph.D. Program:
M.S. required courses plus two courses from the following list:
BSYSE 583 -- Food Separation Processes Design
BSYSE 586 -- Food Rheology
BSYSE 58 8 -- Food Powders
BSYSE 58 7 -- Food Plant Design
(Or other approved food engineering graduate courses )
Elective Courses :
MS food engineering students should take at least seven credits
FSHN 416 -- Food Microbiology
FSHN 417 -- Food Microbiology Laboratory
FSHN 460 -- Food Chemistry
FSHN 462 -- Food Analyses
FSHN 470 -- Advanced Food Processing Technologies
ME 404 -- Heat Transfer
ME 513 -- Conduction Heat Transfer
ME 514 -- Thermal Radiation Processes
ME 515 -- Advanced Heat Transfer
ME 521 -- Fundamentals of Fluids I
ME 522 -- Fundamentals of Fluids II
EE 517 -- Numerical Solutions to EM problems
EE 518 -- Advanced Electromagnetic Theory I
EE 538 -- EM Simulation
CE 534 -- Finite Elements
CE 556 -- Numeric Modeling in Fluid Mechanics
ChE 441 -- Process Control
ChE 510 -- Transport Processes
And other approved graduate level courses offered in the CEA
Environmental Engineering Requirements Core Courses :
M.S. students can choose two from the three core courses while
BSYSE 556 -- Surface Hydrologic Processes and Modeling
BSYSE 5XX -- Nutrient Cycling and Transport (in preparation)
BSYSE 555 -- Natural Systems for Wastewater Treatment
CE 541 -- Environmental Engineering Unit Operations
CE 542 -- Environmental Engineering Unit Processes
Suggested Elective Courses
BSYSE 595 -- Ground-water Flow and Contaminant Transport
BSYSE 557 -- Watershed Modeling and Management
CE 515 -- Environment Measurements
CE 517 -- Mechanics of Sediment Transport
CE 51 8 -- Hazardous Waste Engineering
CE 519 -- Hazardous Water Treatment
CE 547 -- Principles of Environmental Engineering
CE 571 -- Meteorology
SOILS 514 -- Environmental Biophysics
SOILS 51 5 -- Environmental Biophysics Laboratory
SOILS 521 -- Environmental Soil Chemistry
Biomass Processing and Bioproduct Engineering Requirements Core Courses :
Required for M.S.
BSYSE 594 -- Advanced Topics in Bioprocessing and Biotreatment
BSYSE 5XX -- Biorefinery Process Analysis and Design
BSYSE 5XX -- Biochemical, Biofuel and Bioenergy
Suggested Elective Courses
BSYSE 583 -- Food Separation Process Design
ChE 529 -- Chemical Engineering Kinetics
ChE 541 -- Chemical Engineering Analysis
ChE 546 -- Mass Transfer Operations
ChE 552 -- Process Optimization
ChE 560 -- Biochemical Engineering
ChE 575 -- Introduction to Biochemical Engineering
MBIOS 503 -- Molecular Biology I
MBIOS 50 3 -- Molecular Biology II
MBIOS 506 -- Molecular Techniques in Microbiology
MBIOS 513 -- General Biochemistry I
MBIOS 513 -- General Biochemistry II
