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.

Undergraduate research

News

Brown soil and green plants in a field

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$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.

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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
Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute, associate professor of astronomy and author of “Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos,” said the thousands of exoplanets detected to date suggest there are “billions and billions” of possibilities for life beyond Earth. Photo by Sreang Hok.

News

In person and online Nov. 9, thousands attended an interdisciplinary program of research presentations and music celebrated Carl Sagan’s legacy on what would have been his 90th birthday.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Department of Communication
  • Biology