Environmental Health and Engineering
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More detailed requirements for students enrolling at JHU for Fall 2025 will be available on this page when the JHU e-Catalogue is published in early July.
Overview
Environmental engineers plan, design, and operate technological systems to prevent, control, or remediate pollution. They evaluate and design public policy and conduct research to understand and solve environmental problems. Our degree program is flexible enough to accommodate students with a variety of interests in Environmental Engineering.
Programs
Majors
The Department of Environmental Health and Engineering (EHE) offers an undergraduate Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Environmental Engineering with five focus areas within the environmental engineering major:
Environmental Management and Economics
Environmental Engineering and Science
Environmental Health Engineering
Land, Air, and Water Resources
Energy Systems Analysis
We also offer a five-year concurrent (BS/MS or BS/MSE) program.
Minors
Environmental engineering has become an important aspect of engineering practice in most engineering fields, and the discipline spans the professional spectrum from the private sector through governmental agencies to academia. An undergraduate minor in environmental engineering allows engineering students to pursue an interest in this field and to incorporate aspects of environmental engineering into careers in other engineering disciplines. We offer three minors.
Environmental Engineering
This minor is designed to allow other engineering students to pursue an interest in environmental engineering and to incorporate aspects of this field into careers in their own discipline.
Environmental Sciences
This minor is designed to encourage and facilitate studies in environmental science by students completing degrees in natural sciences e.g. chemistry, biology, physics.
Engineering for Sustainable Development
This minor is designed to expose students to some of the key issues related to development, methods of information gathering in diverse and difficult settings, and working effectively with non-engineers on complex problems. Students interested in the minor should take EN.570.110: Introduction to Engineering for Sustainable Development. This course introduces debates about development and explores cases of engineering interventions in developing countries to identify factors that shape success in achieving project goals and avoiding undesirable outcomes.
Research
Students can participate in research across the department in the following areas:
- Chemical composition of gas particles in the air to improve our understanding of climate, air quality, and health impacts of pollutants
- Landscape hydrology; how the structure of landscapes controls the movement of water from rainfall to streams, and how that structure evolves over time
- Systems analysis and economics to improve electric utility planning, operations, and policy, as well as management of environmental and water resources systems
- Complex systems dynamics, resilience
- Satellite data and statistics to understand greenhouse gas emissions across the globe
- Occurrence and fate of organic contaminants in the urban water cycle and their impact on environmental and human health
- Microorganisms and environmental drivers of impairments to inland and coastal water bodies such as oxygen depletion and algal blooms
- Mathematical models to shed light on complex environmental and earth systems and to predict future trends within those systems
- Electrochemistry to achieve a sustainable energy-water infrastructure, and environmentally sustainable production of chemicals
- Biotechnologies to produce bioenergy and biochemicals to substitute fossil fuel-based products
- chemistry foundations to biogeochemical processes to address issues of anthropogenic chemicals in the environment and engineered systems
After Graduation
Our program provides ideal preparation for future employment in business, industry, or government for subsequent training at the graduate level, either in Environmental Engineering or in a field such as environmental law, public health, or medicine. Graduates in this field work in private consulting firms, industrial firms, regulatory agencies, nongovernmental agencies (NGOs), international agencies, research laboratories, and universities.
Activities
Students in the department get involved in the Environmental Health and Engineering Student Organization (EHE-SO), which organizes local river clean-ups, community service opportunities, and social gatherings.
Additional Information
To learn more about the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, visit ehe.jhu.edu.