Over the past century, the work of chemical engineers has changed the lives of people around the world though chemical transformations that are at the heart of technologies that enable modern society—from the synthetic fertilizers that transformed agriculture to the development of novel molecules and materials to produce new fuels, electronics, medical devices, and other products.
Chemical engineers’ ability to apply systems-level thinking from molecular to manufacturing scales uniquely positions them to address today’s most pressing challenges. New Directions for Chemical Engineering, published in 2022, identifies specific opportunities for chemical engineers in six areas deemed critical to addressing those challenges. The report also calls for strong U.S. investment in research, increased cross-sector collaboration, and improvements in the way we educate and train the next generation of chemical engineers.
Through discovery, design, creation, and transformation, chemical engineering is the engineering of systems at scales ranging from molecular to macroscopic that integrate chemical, physical, and biological elements in order to develop processes and produce materials and products for the benefit of society.
Chemical engineers are in high demand across most professions and job levels. The chemical engineering curriculum today provides a robust foundation for available careers, but the rapid pace of technology and emerging market needs are putting additional pressures on it. Efforts to teach in ways that enhance understanding of connections between concepts, work with adjacent fields, and expand experiential learning opportunities are needed.
The field also needs to address its current lack of diversity. Women and members of historically excluded groups are underrepresented in in the field relative to the general population, even by comparison to chemical and biological sciences and related fields. As shown in the figure below, the racial disparity in the field has been essentially unchanged for more than a decade. Recruiting and supporting a more diverse workforce is essential to the field’s survival and potential for impact.
Demographic breakdown of degrees awarded to chemical engineers by race: (a) bachelor’s degrees, (b) master’s degrees, and (c) PhDs. NOTE: In the data for PhDs, the category of Asian and Pacific Islander is disaggregated, with separate categories for Asian and for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders; the categories also included an option for “more than one race” rather than “other race or unknown.” Therefore, these data do not sum to 100 percent because data were redacted for privacy reasons.
Data from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.
The undergraduate chemical engineering curriculum focuses heavily on mastering concepts in the dynamics and thermodynamics of physical, chemical and, increasingly, biological processes. The goal is to build a foundation that can be applied to a wide range of technical and societal challenges.
Curriculum changes that help students make connections between concepts and practice and that provide more experiential learning are needed. Efforts to attract more diversity to undergraduate programs are also needed.
Undergraduate Curriculum Revisions
Chemical engineering departments should consider the following revisions to their undergraduate curricula.
At the University of California, Davis an experiential freshman laboratory experience has been developed for both majors and non-majors. Each version of this course uses the design of a coffee brewing process, optimizing flavor with respect to energy use, as a vehicle for experiential learning. For chemical engineering majors, the course is mathematical in nature and uses the roasting, grinding, and brewing of coffee to introduce process flow diagrams, mass and energy balances, transport phenomena, separations, and the basics of design. With this experience in hand, students are demonstrably more sophisticated in their understanding of how individual courses and concepts fit into the discipline and various applications as they complete their degrees.
Because chemical engineering is unique in its pervasive contributions to society—ranging from energy, to food and water, to human health–the field is in a strong position to attract a broad range of individuals interested in a career with the potential for societal impact. Research has shown that members of historically excluded groups are often motivated by altruistic career goals to make the world better and give back to their communities.
Diversity in Undergraduate Programs
As the breadth and scope of chemical engineering research expands, graduate students will need to acquire deep knowledge in adjacent fields and subfields, including, for example, biology, materials science, or applied physics—which could come at the expense of the study of core chemical engineering topics. Determining whether to compensate for core concepts covered in less depth in undergraduate programs or create more flexibility in graduate education is an open question. As with undergraduate education, efforts to increase opportunities for experiential learning and to attract students from other disciplines and from diverse backgrounds is needed.
While a graduate preparation in chemical engineering builds on undergraduate material, that exclusivity comes at the cost of both the number women and BIPOC students and the breadth of scientific backgrounds in the chemical engineering graduate population.
To increase the recruitment of students from historically excluded communities into graduate programs, chemical engineering departments should consider revising their admissions criteria to remove barriers faced by, for example, students who attended less prestigious universities or did not participate in undergraduate research.
To provide more opportunities for women and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) individuals, departments should welcome students with degrees in related disciplines and consider additions to their graduate curricula that present the core components of the undergraduate curriculum tailored for postgraduate scientists and engineers.
New Directions for Chemical Engineering offers a vision to guide chemical engineering research, innovation, and education over the next few decades. It calls for new investments in U.S. chemical engineering and the interdisciplinary, cross-sector collaborations necessary to advance the societal goals of transitioning to a low-carbon energy system, ensuring our production and use of food and water is sustainable, developing medical advances and engineering solutions to health equity, and manufacturing with less waste and pollution. The report also calls for changes in chemical engineering education to ensure the next generation of chemical engineers is more diverse and equipped with the skills necessary to address the challenges ahead.
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