Villanova is offering a new minor in Bioengineering that bridges the Colleges of Engineering, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Nursing that will provide an opportunity for an interdisciplinary experience for students in engineering, the sciences, and nursing.
The minor will be completed by students taking a minimum of 12 credits of science or bioengineering courses outside of the major, a minimum of 9 credits of science or bioengineering courses inside the major, and 3 credits from either inside or outside of the major (student’s choice). A course in ethics is required in addition to these 24 credits. Note that the latter 9 or 12 credits from above are from courses that already satisfy the student’s major and so do not contribute an additional course load. The details of the requirements are presented below.
What is Bioengineering?
The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health have identified bioengineering as “an essential underpinning field for the 21st century.” In recent years bioengineering has become a generic term that describes the blending of engineering and biology to produce new knowledge, processes, procedures, systems, and products for the benefit of society. Fields or sub-fields of bioengineering include biomedical engineering, biomechanics, biomaterials, bioinstrumentation, and bioinformatics; development and use of algorithms and mathematical methods to model and analyze biological behavior. Engineers and biologists collaborate in the area of bioremediation which is the use of biological systems to promote environmental stewardship.
