News degree programs begin in biomedical engineering

USC began offering bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in biomedical engineering this past fall, administered by the chemical engineering and mechanical engineering departments.

The degree programs also have teaching and research support from USC's School of Medicine, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Arnold School of Public Health.

“We're the only university in the state with a medical school to complement our engineering and computing college, and we expect the collaboration between the two will provide a solid foundation for these new degree programs,” said Michael Amiridis, dean of the College of Engineering and Computing. “We anticipate as many as 50 students this fall. Gauging the interest we've had so far, that number could grow much higher in the future.”

The provost's office approved a cluster hiring through USC's Faculty Excellence Initiative that will bring five more new faculty members with biological engineering backgrounds to engineering, medicine, and arts and sciences.

“As the state's largest and most comprehensive research university, an important component of our core mission is to innovate in cutting-edge education and research at the interstices between traditional disciplines,” said Provost Mark Becker, who played a key role in pushing the initiative through the CHE approval process. “Biomedical engineering is an important and growing field in which we already have a critical mass of expertise; these new degree programs will help to build that even further.”