Chemical & Biological Engineering

New department name reflects increased scope

Biological research is increasingly carried out by interdisciplinary teams. This team, which includes Paul Nealey (top right) and Ana Teixeira (PhD 2003, lower right, now a postdoctoral researcher with the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm), is developing materials and fabrication methods for nanostructured surfaces that can be integrated into biological systems to direct and modulate the behavior of cells. (30K JPG)

In 1899, the UW Board of Regents approved a new degree program in applied electrochemistry within the Department of Electrical Engineering, and in 1905, this program was incorporated into a new department with a broader agenda and the name: Department of Chemical Engineering. This name has served our department well for almost 100 years. During this period the department achieved international recognition for its teaching and research programs, and for the last 40 years has been ranked in the top five departments of chemical engineering for both undergraduate and graduate programs.

Chemical engineering is a discipline with a unique focus on chemical transformations and the systems in which these transformations occur. However, for more than 50 years, our department has recognized that the engineering of biological systems is an important part of the field of chemical engineering. Early pioneers such as Bob Marshall created research programs and joint degree programs with Biochemistry to provide the engineers for the industry at that time. One of our students from that period, John C. Garver (BS '46, MS '47, PhD '55), even became a faculty member in the UW Department of Biochemistry. This emphasis on biological engineering continued with the appointment of Ed Lightfoot in 1953, Tom Massaro in 1971, and at least five additional faculty in the 1980's and 90's. Furthermore, many other faculty developed collaborative research programs with colleagues in the life sciences, thus for some 50 years our department has had a strong biological engineering component.

As a result, many of our PhD students now hold high positions in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry while others hold faculty positions as "bioengineering" specialists in chemical engineering, bioengineering, and other "bio" departments. With recent advances in the biological sciences, ever more of these chemical transformations are being engineered to take place in biological systems, with the result that the life sciences have joined chemistry as enabling sciences for our discipline.

Today the majority of our faculty have some research projects based on the life sciences and more than half of our current graduate students have thesis topics based on the engineering of biological systems. This trend is expected to continue, representing a permanent and important change in the scope of our field.

To better prepare our students for this changing landscape, last fall the department underwent a comprehensive, internal undergraduate curriculum evaluation. In addition to strengthening our chemical engineering core courses, it was decided to add two life science requirements to the ChE curriculum: a molecular biochemistry course and a cellular biology course. Additional curriculum changes within the department have been underway for some time and will continue. While individual students have chosen biological science electives for more than 50 years, our faculty felt that it was now time that all students acquire basic biological science literacy in order to understand the changes taking place in the life sciences and to be able to take advantage of the many opportunities these changes present to the chemical engineering profession.

In order to make this biological emphasis clear to students and their future employers, and to ensure credibility with granting agencies, industrial donors, and prospective faculty, our faculty has concluded that our name should change to accurately reflect our actual educational and research activities. Discussions of our department name change have taken place at numerous faculty meetings over the last year. During this time, we have also had formal and informal discussions on this issue with our Visiting Committee, Big 10+ department chairs, alumni at Engineers' Day, a focus group of undergraduate students, the student chapter of AIChE, and the freshman counselors in the College of Engineering. At the conclusion of these discussions, the faculty of Chemical Engineering decided to change the department name to "Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering." This decision has been ratified by the College of Engineering and the Faculty Senate of the university.

"This change reflects a permanent increase in the scope of our discipline, and brings our name in line with the research and instructional programs of the department," says department chair, Jim Rawlings. "It will also increase the visibility of the department and the opportunities of our graduates in the biological sciences based industries."