Environmental Health And Safety And Biochemical Engineering With A Chemical Engineering Foundation

Abstract

Chemical Engineering principles are utilized in a variety of industries such as semiconductor processing, environmental engineering and biotechnology. One main characteristic of these fields is their multidisciplinary nature. Thus, parts of the chemical engineering curriculum can be an integrated into the training of engineers desiring to work in these fields. We will describe an industry-driven engineering Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) degree program and a Biochemical Engineering emphasis that have been developed at San Jose State University (SJSU). The EHS program includes a strong foundation of Chemical Engineering courses even though it is housed in the General Engineering Department. The Biochemical Engineering emphasis is incorporated in the Chemical Engineering program. The development of the EHS program can be used as a model for the incorporation of Chemical Engineering courses as the foundation for other multidisciplinary degree programs. We will describe the assessment method which has been developed for the EHS program and the Biochemical Engineering emphasis and our first steps at implementing this assessment.