Chemical engineering is a discipline influencing numerous areas of technology. In broad terms, chemical engineers conceive and design processes to produce, transform and transport materials — beginning with experimentation in the laboratory followed by implementation of the technology in full-scale production. To do these jobs, the chemical engineer must have a complete and quantitative understanding of both the engineering and scientific principles underlying these technological processes. This is reflected in the curriculum of the Chemical Engineering Department, which includes the study of applied mathematics, material and energy balances, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, energy and mass transfer, separations technologies, chemical reaction kinetics and reactor design, and process design. These courses are built on a foundation in the sciences of chemistry, physics and biology.