Mission
Our primary mission is to educate students to understand the human body as an integrated system through quantitative engineering analysis and to use that understanding to design better therapeutic strategies, devices and diagnostics. A mission of nearly equal importance is to serve society by conducting research that develops quantitative linkages across scales in the human body and uses that development to build new tools to improve human health.
Vision
Our research and educational missions are guided by a vision of understanding the human body as an integrated system with the goal to predict how changes at the molecular level relate to the cellular, tissue/organ, and whole-body level responses. These relationships across length and time scales must be quantitative and explicit. Realization of this vision will enable the rational design of therapeutic strategies and devices and enhance our ability to interpret diagnostic information to improve human health.
History
Biomedical engineering education at Cornell evolved from a 45-year history of bioengineering research and education at the university. A formal program in bioengineering was established in 1994 with a Special Opportunity Award from the Whitaker Foundation. The graduate field of biomedical engineering, which administers the graduate degree programs, was approved by New York state in 1997. A department of biomedical engineering was established in 2004, and the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering was instituted in 2015. Our undergraduate degree program began in 2016 and received ABET accreditation in 2023.