A student looks at a monitor with an image of high-res cells.
Interdisciplinary Research

At the interface of engineering and medicine, bioengineering is an inherently interdisciplinary field with societal impact. This student is viewing a microscope image of human airway smooth muscle cells stained with fluorescent calcium dye as part research to improve treatment for asthma.

A student looks through a microscope.
State-of-the-Art Labs

Innovation is furthered with an interdisciplinary collaborative lab environment and state-of-the-art facilities such as the Microscope Hub in the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex where this student is looking at cancer culture.

Capstone Collaborative Makerspace

With a 3000 square foot makerspace including 18 tables and state-of-the-art equipment, undergraduate students have the space, capabilities, and environment to work and innovate together on capstone, research, and teaching projects.

Mona Minkara works on cell configuration
Diverse Faculty

Assistant Professor Mona Minkara sits works on cell configuration with her research assistant. Dr. Minkara is a blind faculty member and she uses these cells to feel and recognize cell types.

Two students working in the lab
Hands-on, Project-based Learning

As part of the weekly lab for Bioengineering Measurement, Experimentation and Statistics course, students learn cell and tissue culture, biomechanics, computational, and other areas within bioengineering.

Spotlight Stories

Ella Strzegowski
Ella Strzegowski
BS Bioengineering, 2023

Bioengineering student Ella Strzegowski, E'23, is spending her co-op working at Moderna on quality control measures to examine the...

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Giona Kleinberg
BS Bioengineering and Biochemistry, 2023

Giona Kleinberg, E’23, majoring in bioengineering and biochemistry with a minor in data science, is an experienced researcher with...

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ASME 2023 Y.C. Fung Early Career Award

BioE Assistant Professor Jessica Oakes was selected as the 2023 Y.C. Fung Early Career Award Medalist for outstanding work in respiratory mechanics that has significantly advanced the understanding of asthma, smoking, and inhalable drug delivery, and for strong advocacy in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

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Jiahe Li

NSF CAREER Award for Examining sRNAs as Potential Disease Prevention

Jiahe Li, BioE assistant professor, has been awarded a $636,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, titled “Understanding and Harnessing Host-derived Small RNAs Against Opportunistic Pathogens,” to learn how to harness one of the body’s natural defense mechanisms to inhibit bad bacteria.

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$7.5M DOD MURI Grant for Synthetic Biology

University Distinguished Professor Eduardo Sontag and collaborators received a $7.5M DOD MURI grant to impact synthetic biology by changing the way one describes, characterizes, and designs genetic modules, through tools that will enable the systematic and scalable design of increasingly complex biomolecular decision-making systems.

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New Concentration in Systems, Synthetic, and Computational Bioengineering

The concentration is designed to prepare students with in-demand skills in data and system science and in synthetic biology, as well as on how to apply those skills to emergent fields in bioengineering.

Learn about the new concentration

Engineering In Action

World-Renown Co-op Program

Ella Strzegowski (Bioengineering E’23) embarked on a co-op at Moderna in the fall of 2021, just as the company was applying for its biologics license and COVID-19’s Omicron variant was tearing through the population. Her experience placed her at the epicenter of covid-related research even as the virus—and the world’s response to it—changed by the day.

PhD Research for Impact

Lauren Cole (PhD in Bioengineering) has dedicated her Northeastern research to understanding the medicinal properties of certain plants, especially in the production of chemotherapy drugs. Shedding light on how plants can be engineered to produce these beneficial molecules, she’s shared her research in published journal articles and an award-winning conference presentation.

World-Renown Experiential Learning

Originally from Nigeria, OluwaFemi Koledoye (MS in Bioengineering) pursued a cell and tissue concentration at Northeastern—hoping to return home with the training to bring change to healthcare in West Africa. His hands-on experience of the biopharmaceutical industry, including a co-op, gave him the tools to realize his ambitions.

World-Renowned Cooperative Education

Kritika Singh, BS, Bioengineering, is on her first co-op at Massachusetts General Hospital in the Center for Systems Biology and she is also working on a malaria project to express a difficult to express protein. Her ambition is to be a physician scientist and says co-op will definitely help her achieve that.

World-Renowned Cooperative Education

Aanie Phillips, BS, Bioengineering, says co-op puts into perspective what you learn in the classroom providing an immersive learning experience. She did two co-ops, a clinical one at a doctor’s office, and the other as a mechanical and operations engineer at Virtudent, a teledentistry startup. Aaanie is off to medical school with a full scholarship from her top-choice school.

Recent News

Congratulation NSF GRFP Recipients

Congratulations to the current students and alumni who are recipients of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Awards. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science. Name Baccalaureate Institution Current Field of Study Current Institution Award Offered Attari, Adel Wael (ChE E’19) Northeastern University Life Sciences – Cell […]

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Schmidt Futures Gives $50M for Life Science Research Including Single-Cell Proteomics Institute

The GenomeWeb article “Schmidt Futures Gives $50M for Life Science Research Including Single-Cell Proteomics Institute” highlights the Parallel Squared Technology Institute (PTI), a new non-profit research institute recently launched by Allen Distinguished Investigator and BioE Associate Professor Nikolai Slavov and former bioengineering students Aleksandra Petelski, PhD’22, and Harrison Specht, PhD’22.

Dai and Huang-Saad Inducted as AIMBE Fellows

BioE Associate Professors Guohao Dai and Aileen Huang-Saad were inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Fellows Class of 2023. Dai was elected “for contributions in vascular mechanobiology and 3D bioprinting vascular networks for tissue engineering, regenerative medicine applications” and Huang-Saad was elected “for outstanding contributions to the development of BME entrepreneurship education microenvironments and studying their impact on the engagement of diverse populations.”

Pursuing Bioengineering PhD to Affect Patient Outcomes through Research

Kevin Bardon, PhD’23, bioengineering, began his doctoral studies after a 20-year career of academic and industry research, with a goal to lead independent research. At Northeastern, he has jointly filed for a patent for a real-time immune biomarker detection system, is preparing to publish several papers on optimized photoacoustic contrast agents, and he presented his research at professional gatherings.