Department of Biomedical Engineering marks inaugural year with achievements

Biomedical Engineering students

The Department of Biomedical Engineering (BMEN), the sixth department of the University of North Texas (UNT) College of Engineering, has accomplished much during its first year and plans to continue that momentum including exploring opportunities for growth.

After the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved the creation of the department in January 2014, the college quickly jumped into gear to create a high quality program. The effort involved finding the right mix of experienced faculty who would prepare students to be successful candidates in the field of biomedical engineering. In addition to its efforts to launch a BMEN department, the College has been unveiling new facilities, including 30,000 square feet of state-of-the-art laboratory and teaching space that will benefit biomedical engineering research.

On Aug. 25, 2014, the college welcomed its first BMEN class, “Discover Biomedical Engineering,” a discovery course taught by Dr. Vijay Vaidyanathan, who has since been appointed the department’s founding chair.

“UNT’s Biomedical Engineering is poised for tremendous growth in the coming years. With its innovative and varied curriculum, the department is looking forward to exciting and path-breaking research and adding many highly skilled engineers to the state and national workforce in the near future,” Vaidyanathan said.

The department also welcomed the Center for Network Neuroscience (CNNS), which was established to facilitate trans-disciplinary studies of the self-organization and electrophysiological dynamics of mammalian networks in cell culture. Dr. Guenter Gross, who heads CNNS, is a joint faculty member of the Department of Biology and the Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Fifty-one students are majoring in BMEN, and the department has 87 students admitted for fall 2015, including one potential student who will be a power forward for the UNT’s women’s basketball team.

The department offers five tracks:

  • Bioinformatics
  • Biomaterials
  • Biomechanics
  • Biomedical instrumentation, and
  • Biotechnology (a pre-med track).

All BME students will automatically be awarded a minor in mathematics upon completion of their degree. Additional engineering minors may be pursued through selecting electives from:

  • Computer Science and Engineering,
  • Electrical Engineering,
  • Materials Science and Engineering, and
  • Mechanical and Energy Engineering.

In the fall 2016 semester, BMEN will launch a graduate program, and options will include a certificate in health services management in collaboration with the UNT Health Science Center. The department will also open its undergraduate program to all transfer students; currently, the program is open only to incoming freshmen.