Biological Engineering Sees A Multi-Fold Increase In Majors

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - New faculty and potential career paths that range from working with M&M/Mars or NASA to medical school have attracted many students to the field of biological engineering.

The number of freshmen in the department was six in 2000. A biology-based engineering program was developed and approved in 2001. The number of students declaring a biological engineering major has grown to 47 in the fall of 2002. The academic quality of these students is high; 40 percent of them entered the University in the newly established and endowed Honors College.

Housed in the College of Engineering and the Dale Bumpers College of Agriculture, Food and Life Sciences, the biological engineering program represents one of the few places in the country where students can study the application of engineering to biological systems—plants, animals, humans and the broader environment.

"It’s an academically challenging program, but it also has potentially high rewards," said Lalit Verma, head of the department. Many honors students seek the degree because of its academic rigor and the career potential it affords. Students graduate with a professional engineering degree in hand, but also can take all the courses that prepare them for medical school.

The department has hired six out of its ten faculty in the past 30 months, keeping in mind its mission to integrate biology and engineering. The department has four areas of concentration: bio-environmental engineering, biomedical engineering, food and bio-processing engineering and bio-mechanical engineering.

Students interested in bio-environmental engineering can work with researchers who study water quality issues and integrate field data, remote sensing and simulation modeling to address issues of water quality and environmental pollution.

Students interested in biomedical engineering will integrate course work from engineering, biological sciences and basic sciences. These students will have many options after graduation, including medical school, graduate school or work in the biomedical industry.

Food and bio-process engineering has applications both in food processing—including vegetables, meat and poultry—and neutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals, fields in which the University of Arkansas has cutting-edge expertise.

Bio-mechanical engineering has applications both in health—in development of new tools for surgical procedures, for instance—and in agriculture, where engineers have begun to help farmers use remote sensing and satellite imagery for precision farming.

"The ever-increasing opportunities for engineering in the revolution of biotechnology, genetic engineering, biomedical and bio-process engineering are phenomenal," Verma said. He points out that biological engineers can apply their expertise to value-added processing; environmental and natural resources management; genetic modification of plants, animals and microbes; public health, health care and medical devices; bio-remediation; biotechnology scale-up; biological and fermentation processes; pharmaceuticals and food safety.

"We must capitalize on the biotechnology revolution and produce engineers able to work effectively on interdisciplinary teams with biological as well as physical sciences," he said.

Faculty in the department include Verma, who specializes in bio-process engineering and also is involved in national-level biological engineering education, curriculum development and accreditation efforts; Sreekala Bajwa, precision agriculture, specializes in remote sensing and data mining; and Julie Carrier, bio-process engineering, specializes in neutraceuticals and functional foods. In bio-environmental engineering, Indrajeet Chaubey, specializes in non-point source pollution and water quality modeling, Thomas Costello specializes in animal waste management, bio-fuels and micro-environment in agricultural structures, Marty Matlock specializes in ecological engineering and non-point source nutrient loading and Earl Vories specializes in irrigation for crop production. Carl Griffis, bio-process engineering, specializes in food safety and machine vision; Jin-Woo Kim, biotechnological and biochemical engineering, specializes in bio-reactor design, biological remediation and bio-catalytic potential of microbes. Yanbin Li, specializes in bio-detection, bio-sensors and food safety in poultry and other foods, and Rong Murphy specializes in thermal processing and food safety. And Scott Osborn is coordinating the bio-medical engineering concentration.