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

News

Diagram of a skin layer with an implant placed between the skin and muscle.

News

Under-the-skin implant could treat Type I diabetes

Researchers created a new technique to treat Type 1 diabetes: implanting a device inside a pocket under the skin that can secrete insulin while avoiding the immunosuppression that typically stymies management of the disease.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Biology
Three men and a woman gather around a robot demonstration in a laboratory.

News

Snail-inspired robot could scoop ocean microplastics

Inspired by a small and slow snail, scientists have developed a robot protype that may one day scoop up microplastics from the surfaces of oceans, seas and lakes.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Environment
Pile of logs.

News

600 years of tree rings reveal climate risks in California

An interdisciplinary collaboration used paleo information and reconstructed weather scenarios to better understand California’s flood and drought risks and how they will be compounded by climate change.

  • Climate Change
  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
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