Chemical engineering is addressing pressing challenges to advance society such as biomedicine, energy, security, and sustainability. Join an R1 research institution and work alongside accomplished faculty in the heart of Boston - a hub for biotech, medical institutions, high tech, and academia.
Innovative Education and Research
Offering rigorous yet flexible academics and top-ranked experience-powered learning to develop the next-generation of chemical engineering leaders.
Academic Offerings
Chemical engineering encompasses a broad range of cutting-edge research allowing them to work at the intersection of a variety of different fields, including biology, chemistry, energy, physics, materials science, and other engineering disciplines.
Hub of Innovation
From being in the heart of the city of Boston with industry and the world's top hospitals, to a range of active student organizations and a network of faculty, alumni, and industry professionals, the Department of Chemical Engineering offers a welcoming and exciting community.
Engaged Student GroupsSpotlight Stories
NSF CAREER Award to Advance Understanding of Crosslinked Polymer Flows
ChE Assistant Professor Sara Hashmi was awarded a $550,000 NSF CAREER award for “In Situ Polymer Gelation in Confined Flows.” She aims to understand the range of system parameters that lead to intermittency and clogging in crosslinking polymer flows through microchannels, and to provide quantitative descriptions of intermittency and the rheological and material properties of intermittent flows.
NIH Trailblazer Award for Engineering Smarter Gut Metabolites to Affect Human Health
ChE Assistant Professor Benjamin Woolston is leading a $628K NIH Trailerblazer Award with Assistant Professor Ryan Koppes, Associate Professor Abigail Koppes, and Professor Rebecca Carrier for “Engineered Probiotics for Closed-Loop Control of Disease-Associated Gut Metabolites in Gut-On-Chip Models.”
New MS in Pharmaceutical Engineering
Through coursework and rich experiential learning, the new MS in Pharmaceutical Engineering prepares engineers with a unique blend of advanced skills in state-of-the art pharmaceutical design, manufacturing process engineering, regulatory and quality issues to meet the evolving and growing needs of the biotechnology industry.
Engineering in Action
Chemical Engineering Research Co-op in Switzerland
Chemical Engineering student Hannah Boyce shares her unique experience conducting research abroad at ETH Zurich, one of Europe’s leading biotech institutions.
PhD Research for Impact
With a dream of curing breast cancer, Chinedu Okorafor, PhD in chemical engineering, took full advantage of her Northeastern University curriculum and surrounding biotech centers in Boston. Northeastern’s interdisciplinary approach—sparking collaborations among the sciences—helped her chart her own course toward a degree with many possible rewarding applications.
Reaching Career Goals
For Haroon Bukhari, MS in chemical engineering, the Northeastern experience culminated in a co-op at Rogers Corporation, an innovator in engineered materials. Focusing on applications including electric vehicles, he’s already building a career toward making green technologies safer, more efficient, and more cost-effective.
World-Renowned Cooperative Education
Bradley Priem, BS in chemical engineering, had two co-ops that gave him the ability to delve into a particular industry. At Synlogic he was a bioanalytical chemist and bacterial engineer creating e-coli strains, and at bluebird bio he was an upstream process development engineer for gene production. He now knows he wants to go into the biotech industry and is interested in graduate school too.
Recent News
Pizzarella Receives 2024 Condit Award
Dominic Pizzarella, E’25, chemical engineering and biochemistry, won the Sears B. Condit Award which is awarded annually to one student from each of Northeastern’s undergraduate day colleges and is one of the highest honors that a junior or senior at Northeastern University can receive. Pizzarella is interested in disease research and has worked in the […]
Daramola Selected as Fellow for Scialog’s Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials Initiative
ChE/COS Assistant Professor Damilola Daramola has been named a Fellow for the Scialog initiative on Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials.
New Methods for Ammonia Electrosynthesis Modeling
ChE Assistant Professor Qing Zhao was awarded a $537,226 NSF award for “Automated Embedded Correlated Wavefunction Theory for Kinetic Modeling in Heterogeneous Catalysis.”
Kapadiya Receives 2024 Outstanding Master’s Student Award in Teaching
Rahul Bhaveshbhai Kapadiya, MS’24, chemical engineering, is the recipient of the 2024 Outstanding Master’s Student Award in Teaching, which honors excellence in teaching, positively impacting academic success.