A Tennessee Welcome to Biosystems Engineering & Soil Science

Thank you for visiting our Web site -- we are pleased that you are interested in learning more about programs in Biosystems Engineering & Soil Science.

We offer two bachelor's degrees that will prepare you to work with environmental, ecological, or agricultural systems:

• Biosystems Engineering - biosystems engineers work with natural systems and integrate knowledge of biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering to efficiently produce and process safe, plentiful, high quality food and fiber while conserving natural resources and protecting the environment. We also have a pre-professional concentration for students interested in pursuing law or medicine.
• Environmental & Soil Sciences - this science-based curriculum offers three concentrations, for students interested in environmental science, soil science, or agricultural systems technology.

To give a few examples, students currently in these programs have the opportunity to work with:

• GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and GPS (Global Positioning Systems) to precisely determine yield and to map soil production potential for entire fields,
• Constructed wetlands and biological systems to treat water from food processing and livestock production,
• State-of-the-art erosion prediction models to prevent sedimentation of our streams,
• Systems that are being developed to process genetically engineered plants and grains,
• Methods to use fish and macroinvertebrate populations to assess water quality, and
• Instrumentation that uses spectral reflectance to monitor plant health.

Both of these degrees will prepare you for a professionally rewarding career; I am excited about the opportunities for applying engineering and scientific principles to biological and environmental systems. If you enjoy science, math, and solving problems, a degree in Biosystems Engineering or in Environmental & Soil Sciences will prepare you for an exciting and satisfying career.

For more information, send us an email at bess@utk.edu or give us a call at 974-7266. We look forward to the opportunity to answer your questions or give you a tour of the department.

Sincerely,

George F. Grandle, PhD
Interim Head