Chemical Engineering, M.S.

Florida Tech offers a close-knit learning environment where small classes and dedicated faculty provide personalized mentoring and help you build a strong professional network.

Creative collaboration between students and professors fosters intellectual curiosity, with frequent opportunities to gain real-world experience beyond the classroom.

What sets Florida Tech apart is its strong focus on research and teamwork. Whether you're engaged in hands-on fieldwork, faculty-led projects, internships, assistantships or peer collaborations, you'll graduate with the skills and confidence to succeed in your career.

Our faculty lead innovative research across a wide range of chemical engineering disciplines, giving students the chance to work on cutting-edge projects that match their interests and career goals. Areas of research include:

• Energy and Environment: Developing sustainable, cost-effective renewable energy and carbon-based materials.
• Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering: Exploring biomimetic scaffolds, collagen, 3D printing and stem cells for advanced biomedical applications.
• Advanced Separations: Designing processes to remove impurities from chemical streams, an essential step in nearly every production system.
• Sub and Supercritical Fluids: Converting waste into valuable products by leveraging the unique properties of fluids under extreme conditions.
• Process Design and Optimization: Conducting technoeconomic assessments (TEA) of hydrothermal carbonization and other emerging technologies
• Materials Characterization and Processing: Synthesizing and analyzing novel materials for use in high-performance applications.

Research is at the heart of Florida Tech’s chemical engineering program, combining classroom theory with hands-on experience to prepare you for real-world challenges.

Students explore topics such as reverse osmosis, materials synthesis and failure prevention, transport and separation processes, and computer-aided modeling and control.

You’ll work closely with faculty and peers in active research labs, focusing on projects that align with your interests. Past student work includes innovations in hydrogen-powered vehicles, sustainable food systems, bioreactor design for microalgae, advanced hydrogen purification, space exploration modeling and novel materials processing.

The program places a strong emphasis on research, culminating in the writing of a thesis that addresses a current challenge and produces results suitable for publication in a technical journal. For those seeking a different path, a nonthesis option is also available, which involves completing a special project or additional elective courses instead of a thesis.

Students are encouraged to consult with faculty members early to find research areas that align with their interests and goals. For the nonthesis option, successful completion includes passing a final examination based on a written report and an oral presentation of the graduate project before the student’s faculty committee, ensuring a rigorous and rewarding experience.

Graduate students have published their research from chemical engineering internships and research collaborations in respected journals such as Advances in Colloid and Interface Science, Chemical Engineering Journal and the Journal of Chemical Physics.

They also present their work at top regional, national and international conferences, such as:

• American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) National Meetings
• Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE)
• Biophysical Society Annual Meeting
• Florida Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting
• International Conference on Advanced Ceramics and Composites
• InterPore Annual Meeting – International Conference on Porous Media

These opportunities not only build professional communication skills but also help students connect with the global research community.

We welcome applicants who hold a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering or its equivalent. If your background is in another engineering discipline, science or mathematics, our faculty will work with you to identify any preparatory undergraduate courses that can help ensure your success before you begin the master’s program. This personalized support helps you build a strong foundation as you start your graduate studies with us.

For more information about application and admission, please see our graduate admission requirements.