Chemical Engineering

Undergraduate Research

In addition to a vibrant, graduate-level research program, we offer many opportunities for undergraduate research. Such recent topics include micro devices, materials fabrication, fuel cells and molecular-level design, among others. Students have the opportunity to present their work at regional and national conferences as well as become co-authors in refereed journal publications. Performing undergraduate research is one of the most successful roads to graduate school for an M.S. or a Ph.D. A number of our recent B.S. graduates have continued their graduate studies at Tech, while others have entered graduate programs at universities including Georgia Tech and MIT.

Freshman students can participate in research, if interested, but will receive no formal credit. However, it is a great way to become introduced to a research group and to help decide if research is for you.

For other levels (So/Jr/Sr), you will start out in ChE 3990, which is a one-credit hour Introduction to Research. If you have a successful semester, you can take a two-credit hour ChE 4990, which is called Undergraduate Research. Those classes combine to give you three-hours of a ChE Technical Elective towards your curriculum.

If interested in research, a student should visit the ChE faculty web site and view the display boards outside faculty offices to decide which faculty member(s) have projects that are of most interest to the student. The next step is for the student to set up a meeting with the faculty member to discuss any potential opportunity in more detail.