Bioengineering

The Graduate Certificate in Bioengineering is designed to formalize the training of students specializing in the engineering analysis of living systems. Over the past decade, Princeton faculty have developed new courses that address the design and control of living systems at multiple scales, from single molecules, to cells, tissues, and organisms. Taken together, these classes provide a coherent educational framework that can take the place of a missing graduate program in bioengineering. The graduate certificate program in bioengineering is intended to recognize the efforts and accomplishments of Ph.D. students in engineering and the natural sciences who have gone beyond the requirements of their own degree programs to acquire training in bioengineering.

The certificate is based on core graduate courses, a research seminar, and graduate research. The bioengineering core classes can be taken as graduate electives, in partial fulfillment of the course requirements in home departments.

Please note, students cannot be admitted to Princeton University through the Bioengineering Interdepartmental Graduate Certificate Program since it is not a degree program. The certificate does not appear on the official transcript.

Certificate

Certificate Requirements:

Courses:

The core curriculum provides rigorous training in the engineering analysis of biological molecules and networks, cells, tissues, organs, and organisms. Students are required to take for credit and pass one course in each of the thematic areas (“molecules”, “cells”, “tissues and organs”) for a total of three courses. This requirement is designed to guarantee that all students, regardless of their thesis area, have a solid foundation in the engineering analysis of living systems at multiple scales.

Molecules:
CBE 538 / MOL 538: Biomolecular Engineering
CBE 567: Metabolic Engineering
MOL 515 / PHY 570 / EEB 517 / CHM 517: Method and Logic in Quantitative Biology
CBE 518 / ENE 518: Fundamentals of Biofuels
CBE 419: Enzymes

Cells:
CBE 533: Introduction to the Mechanics and Dynamics of Soft Living Matter
PHY 412: Biological Physics
MAE 545: Lessons from Biology for Engineering Tiny Devices

Tissues and Organs:
CBE 540: Physical Basis of Human Disease
QCB 511 / CBE 511: Modeling Tools for Cell and Developmental Biology
CBE 539 / MOL 539: Quantitative Physiology
ELE / NEU / PSY 480: fMRI Decoding: Reading Minds Using Brain Scans
NEU / MOL / PSY 404: Cellular and Systems Neuroscience

Dissertation and FPO:

Graduate research should be conducted under the supervision of one of the participating faculty. The main requirements are quantitative experiments, rigorous data analysis, and/or mathematical and computational modeling of biological processes. The research topic should be approved by the program director.

Additional Requirements:

Students are required to attend the biweekly Bioengineering Colloquium, which serves as a venue for reporting current results and discussing the integration of different research approaches to the analysis and design of living systems. Students will be required to give a research presentation at this colloquium before completing their FPO. This requirement will teach students how to communicate their research to a broad audience of bioengineers, as well as interact with students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty investigating problems at multiple scales.

Faculty

Director

Celeste M. Nelson

Associated Faculty

Mark P. Brynildsen, Chemical and Biological Eng
Daniel J. Cohen, Mechanical & Aerospace Eng
A. James Link, Chemical and Biological Eng
Z. Jason Ren, Civil and Environmental Eng
Kaushik Sengupta, Electrical & Comp Engineering
H. Sebastian Seung, Computer Science
Mona Singh, Computer Science
Corina E. Tarnita, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Jared E. Toettcher, Molecular Biology

For a full list of faculty members and fellows please visit the department or program website.