Program Objectives:
Environmental engineers are the technical professionals who identify and design solutions for environmental problems. They seek to shield the environment from the harmful effects of human activity, protect human populations from adverse environmental events such as floods and disease, and restore environmental quality for ecological and human well-being. Traditionally, environmental engineers provided safe drinking water, treated and properly disposed of wastes, maintained air quality, controlled water pollution, and remediated sites contaminated by hazardous substances. They continue to do these activities as well as monitor the quality of the air, water, and land and develop new, improved environmental control technologies.
Although many people are concerned about the state of our environment, environmental engineers understand how complicated environmental systems work. They develop molecular tools to track contaminants at very low levels in complex mixtures and genomic tools to characterize microbial diversity in unknown communities. Environmental engineers are the vital link between scientific discovery, technological development and the societal need for protecting human health and ecological integrity. More and more the emphasis of their work is shifting from managing wastes after they are generated, to altering production processes so to recover, recycle and reuse resources.
The field of environmental engineering, as well as environmental engineering education, is highly interdisciplinary. It involves traditional components such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and engineering design. But, environmental engineering education also includes a range of other disciplines, including biology, microbiology, ecology, public health, material science, geology, meteorology, economics, political science, and computer science. To address the spectrum of issues facing the environment, environmental engineers are broadly educated, as well as technically trained.

Undergraduate Studies:
Graduate Studies: