Environmental Chemistry - Introduces the fundamental concepts important to environmental chemistry. In particular, the focus is on understanding sources of chemicals in the environment and the characteristics of the chemical and the environment that control fate and effects. Also of interest are the physical, chemical and biological processes that affect the behavior of inorganic and organic contaminants in natural and engineered systems and how these properties may be exploited to detect, quantitatively model and control the contaminants in environmental systems.
Surface and Subsurface Processes - Provides students with the knowledge and training needed to deal with transport and fate processes in engineered and natural systems. Natural systems will include the atmosphere, surface waters and subsurface waters. The incorporation of the results of transport analyses into management decisions involving monitoring and remediation often requires the quantification and analysis of various real and perceived risks, so an additional objective will be to provide the basic tools needed for risk and decision analysis. A fundamental, quantitative understanding of all these processes will be emphasized, so that students will be able to adapt readily to the ever changing conditions in the real world.
Process Engineering - The purpose of the process engineering area is to prepare graduates to design engineered systems for removing contaminants from air, water, and soil - an activity that is central to the field of environmental engineering. Because of the continually evolving nature of the problems faced by environmental engineers, courses in this emphasis area focus on the approach to problem solving rather than on specific solutions to today's problems. This provides the students with a strong foundation in unit operations and the ability to assemble them into process trains capable of solving any pollution control problem, regardless of its complexity or nature.
Nuclear Environmental Engineering and Science (NEES) - Explores topics such as environmental health physics, risk assessment, environmental radiochemistry, actinide chemistry, and radioactive waste management. The research efforts primarily focus on radiation detection and measurements, environmental radiochemistry, radionuclide fate and transport, and radioactive waste processing. Students within the NEES program may follow either the Environmental Radiochemistry track or the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) Applied Science Accreditation Commission (ASAC) accredited Environmental Health Physics track.
Sustainable Systems & Environmental Assessment - Challenges students to think about environmental systems in a broader context. The objective of the curriculum is to provide a basis for the analysis of complex interactions between human and natural systems. The core courses cover fundamental principles of systems analysis and risk assessment while the electives allow students to define a path of study that bridges scientific and social inquiry.