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

Microbes sitting on top of blue, orange and yellow colored squares

News

News

Nine professors win NSF early-career awards

Researchers studying statistics applications in systems biology and next-generation wireless technology are among the nine Cornell faculty members who’ve received National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Awards.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plant Biology Section
The 2021 sustainable ag intern cohort poses outside Stocking Hall.

News

Internship offers undergrads multidisciplinary perspective in ag and food

  • Animal Science
  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Food Science
Members of the Solar Panel Reboot team stand around a solar panel

News

Sustainability students bring dead solar panels back to life

Using polyurethane, resin, epoxy – and gallons of wit – the Solar Panel Reboot student team, part of the Cornell University Sustainability Design, provides an afterlife to old, broken photovoltaic boards.

  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Energy
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