| Description: | Chemical engineers are NOT chemists, they are "process and systems engineers" also involved with chemistry -- to a degree. It takes a chemical engineer to produce by the ton what perhaps a chemist developed in a test tube: plastics, chemicals, rubber, gasoline, pharmaceuticals, paper, fertilizers, etc.
Chemical engineering skills uniquely prepare and qualify the chemical engineer to deal with the design, running, modeling and optimization of all kinds of "systems" - these could be production or manufacturing systems, corporate systems, financial systems, economic systems, even weather, population or global systems! We need to produce new things bigger, faster and cleaner to sustain our growing population and increasing demand on the world's natural resources.
The central mission of the department is to provide an outstanding formation in Chemical Engineering to undergraduate students who will ultimately become Professional Engineers and researchers at leading companies and institutions around the world. The department’s professors conduct leading-edge research activities in Advanced Materials, Energy and Environmental Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology as well as Plasma Engineering. The professors and staff members of the department are dynamic individuals who are committed to deliver high-quality academic programs while nurturing an environment where students develop other skills and raise their awareness of the profession and of its impacts in the community and environment. |