Biological & Agricultural Engineering

Agricultural Engineering

This major gives you the skills to design practical and efficient solutions to producing, storing, transporting, processing, and packaging agricultural products. Learn the fundamentals of designing agricultural machinery, equipment, and structures.

Devise more efficient ways to use natural resources and reduce pollution. Develop ways to make biofuels from agricultural products, byproducts, and waste. Our faculty is currently researching many topics in agricultural engineering, including machine vision, precision irrigation systems, biological waste treatment, and biofuel production.

Biological Systems Engineering

This major gives you the skills to design, manage, and develop systems and equipment to improve the health and safety of people, animals, and the environment. You will gain a solid understanding of the neurological, muscular, and mechanical functions that occur in the human body. You will learn to assess weaknesses in these functions and to design solutions. Design solutions include examples such as a prosthesis for a missing limb or a new way to deliver drugs to cells.

Environmental Engineering

This major will give you skills to design equipment and manage industrial processes that make efficient and sustainable use of natural resources. Learn to monitor groundwater quality, measure sediment levels, and treat waste. Develop ways to make biofuels from agricultural products, byproducts, and waste. Our faculty is currently researching many topics in environmental engineering. They are developing computer models to predict the effects of climate change on water availability in Idaho, treating polluted soil and aquifers using microbes, designing bioreactors that make natural gas from animal waste, tracing lead poisoning through the digestive tracts of native snow geese, and much more.

Food & Bioprocess Engineering

This major gives you the skills to design and test new ways to process food using approaches that keep food high in quality, fresh, and safe to eat. You will also learn how biofuels are made from agricultural products, byproducts, and waste. Understand the fundamentals of treating municipal, industrial, and agricultural wastes. Learn about industrial processes such as sorting, grinding, and controlling large-scale chemical reactions. Help develop more efficient ways to use natural resources and reduce pollution. Our faculty is currently researching many topics in food and bioprocess engineering, including biological waste treatment and biofuel production.

Soil & Water Engineering

This major will give you the skills to design systems to control runoff, restore waterways, treat water, and protect or create wetlands. Learn about drainage, soil erosion, and the environmental effects of sediment on stream quality. Help develop more efficient ways to use soil and water and reduce pollution. Our faculty is currently researching many topics in soil and water engineering, including watershed hydrology, the effects of climate change on water availability, and the transport of disease-causing microorganisms in groundwater.