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MEng: Biological/ Chemical Engineering

Biological/chemical engineering exists at the interface of engineering, biological, and chemical sciences. This interdisciplinary field brings to bear fundamental design principles to both elucidate and modulate the function of biological systems, ranging in scale from molecular to cellular to whole organisms.

The bioengineer’s toolbox may include skills such as modeling, big data analysis, genetics, process design, biochemistry, and molecular, micro and cellular biology. By modeling, designing, engineering, and optimizing biological systems, bioengineers and biotechnologists are seeking to tackle key unmet needs in medicine, agriculture, industry, the environment, consumer markets, and more.

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Course Requirements

The program consists of nine courses, of which five should be from the list of core courses. The remaining four electives can consist of any graduate-level engineering or science courses at Dartmouth.

During the student's first term, they will work with advisors to develop a full program plan to fulfill the MEng requirements, which they will submit to the Thayer Registrar.

Please note: The information below reflects degree requirements, effective as of Fall 2025.

COURSE TYPEREQUIRED NUMBER OF COURSESCOURSES
Core Courses5 courses

Choose 5 courses, from the following:

ENGS 108: Applied Machine Learning or COSC 274: Machine Learning and Statistical Data Analysis*
ENGS 150: Intermediate Fluid Mechanics
ENGS 155: Intermediate Thermodynamics
ENGS 156: Heat, Mass, and Momentum Transfer
ENGS 157: Chemical Process Design
ENGS 158: Chemical Kinetics and Reactors
ENGS 159: Molecular Sensors & Nanodevices in Biomedical Engineering
ENGS 161: Metabolic Engineering
ENGS 162: Basic Biological Circuit Engineering
ENGS 163: Advanced Protein Engineering
ENGS 165: Biomaterials
ENGG 260: Advances in Biotechnology
ENGG 261: Biomass Energy Systems
ENGS 262: Advanced Biological Circuit Engineering
COSC 175: Introduction to Bioinformatics (Applied Math)**
BIOC 101: Molecular Information in Biological Systems

Electives***4 courses

Choose 4 courses, from the following:

Engineering

Any graduate-level engineering sciences course.

 

Design Project

Students may take one of the following options to partially fulfill the four-course elective requirement. The appropriate option will depend on each student’s prior experience and coursework since the two tracks require different prerequisites.

Option 1 (1 course)

  • ENGM 191: Product Design and Development

Option 2 (2 courses)

  • ENGS 190: Engineering Design and Methodology Project Initiation
  • ENGS 290: Engineering Design Methodology and Project Completion

 

Science
Any graduate-level science courses, including:
COSC 186: Computational Structural Biology
COSC 189: Topics in Computational Immunology
CHEM 101.2: Statistical Thermodynamics
CHEM 161.2: Biomolecular Simulations
CHEM 161.4: Structure and Dynamics of Biomolecules
MICR 142: Advanced Cellular and Molecular Immunology
MICR 144: Cellular and Molecular Basis of Immunity
MICR 149: Microbial Physiology and Metabolism
QBS 108: Applied Machine Learning 1
QBS 120: Foundations of Biostatistics I: Statistical Theory for the Quantitative Biomedical Sci.
QBS 121: Foundations of Biostatistics II: Regression
QBS 149: Mathematics and Probability for Statistics and Data Mining
QBS 175: Foundations of Bioinformatics II**

* ENGS 108, COSC 274, and QBS 108 have overlapping material, and only one may be taken for credit.

** COSC 175 and QBS 175 are equivalent courses. Only one may be taken for credit.

*** Students may choose electives from any graduate-level engineering or science courses offered at Dartmouth. The courses listed here are for recommended students who seek additional further depth of study in their chosen track. With the exception of ENGM 191: Product Design and Development, MEng students may not take ENGM courses for credit.