Rice crops growing in a growth chamber.

Biological & Environmental Engineering

We bring life to engineering

Our unique focus to design and develop processes, products and systems using basic biological, environmental science and engineering tools generates solutions to societal problems involving water, food, energy and public health. Students increasingly need to participate in problem-solving across traditional boundaries. Rapid technological changes are an added challenge, with implications driven by diminishing resources and a growing population. We aim to enable our students to drive innovation as our discipline continues to be transformed by our changing world.

About our department

Welcome to the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering (BEE) in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Our department is one of the largest of its kind in the country, with a very diverse faculty, staff and student population. We serve three integrated functions: teaching the next generation of undergraduate and graduate students, research on problems in biology and the environment, and public outreach to help society implement new knowledge.

Faculty and students conversing in a lab.
Minglin Ma, associate professor of biological and environmental engineering, working with students in his lab. Credit: Allison Usavage

Explore BEE

Undergraduate research

Improving therapeutics for Type 1 diabetes

Gaby Markle ’26 was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 4 years old. Working with Cornell CALS biological and environmental engineering professor Minglin Ma, Gaby is researching potential treatments using synthetic biology.

Discover synthetic biology at CALS
Play CALS Undergraduate Research Experience: Gaby Markle ’26

News

Close up of a green leaf with water droplets

News

Understanding leaves’ resiliency when it rains

New research elucidates a raindrop’s impact on a leaf - the equivalent in mass of a bowling ball hitting a person - and the physical dynamics that help the leaf survive.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Biology
  • Plants
Brown soil and green plants in a field

News

$1.6M supports land-grant research for NY farms, forests, communities

Fifty-four research projects addressing New York’s agriculture, environment and communities have collectively received $1.6 million from the USDA.

  • Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station
  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Gracekelly Fulton '24, co-lead of the Sustainable Landscapes team, prepares to plant a wild plum tree outside Onondaga Nation School. Photo by Sreang Hok.

News

Medicinal garden at Onondaga Nation School grows opportunity

The garden - a collaboration between Onondaga Nation and Cornell Botanic Gardens - will enable Onondaga Nation School to incorporate more lessons from and about their own culture.

  • American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program
  • Cornell Botanic Gardens
  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
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