The ABE Department

The Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Mississippi State University provides students with opportunities to pursue careers in the fields of biomedical engineering, medicine, ecological/environmental engineering, and sustainable energy resources.

The Agricultural Engineering curriculum was established in 1914 under the administration of the School of Architecture. The Agricultural Engineering curriculum was completely revised in 1948 to conform to professional requirements, and the administration of the program was switched to the College of Engineering. A new curriculum was added in 1953, Farm Equipment Management (changed to Agricultural Engineering Technology and Business in 1962), and it was administered by the College of Agriculture. A third curriculum, Biological Engineering (changed to Biosystems Engineering in 2022), was added in 1967, making it the first biological engineering curriculum in the nation. Concurrent with the establishment of the new curriculum in biological engineering, which was also administered by the College of Engineering, the department name was changed to Agricultural and Biological Engineering. The biological engineering program was accredited in 1972 and has been continuously accredited since then. In 1992, in a university restructuring effort the agricultural engineering curriculum was eliminated. In February of 2001, a new graduate program in biomedical engineering was added to the programs in the College of Engineering with the department having responsibilities for its administration. In August of 2017, a new undergraduate program in biomedical engineering was added to the programs including an emphasis in Premedical.

The department has consistently attracted some of the top academic students at Mississippi State. The faculty interacts extensively with the undergraduate and graduate students and involves them in many multi-disciplinary projects. More than 6,000 square feet of state-of-the-art instructional and research facilities include separate labs for sterile tissue culture, biomechanical testing, environmental and agricultural studies, electronic/robotic design fabrication and testing, fiber processing, GPS/GIS, renewable bio-energy, and student computing resources.