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

Two researchers core a tree in the Peruvian Amazon.

News

Tree rings track atmospheric mercury cheaply

Wild fig tree rings offer a cheap method for tracking toxic atmospheric mercury, a byproduct of gold mining in the Global South.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Environment
  • Planet
NSF logo

News

Five early-career professors win NSF development awards

Researchers studying novel traits in organisms and the fundamental understanding of extreme weather are among the five Cornell assistant professors who've received National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Awards.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Blue lines streak across a black background

News

Electrons travel one of two routes in nano-biohybrid systems

Researchers have identified exactly what happens when a microbe receives an electron from a quantum dot: The charge can either follow a direct pathway or be transferred indirectly via the microbe’s shuttle molecules.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Biology
  • Solar
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