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CBE

Chemical and Biological Engineering

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The department at a glance

All recorded grades
average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades

How grades break down

Grades over time

Red: department · Gray: UW–Madison

About these statistics

GPA and percentages are weighted by recorded letter grades. UW comparisons use the same terms. Cross-listed courses count once within this department and once across UW; department totals should not be added together. Grade counts are not unique students. Offering counts reflect captured records, not a complete historical schedule.

Spring 2027

Recorded this term
courses with offerings
instructors recorded

Grades have not been recorded for this term. Historical results remain in the overview above.

Across course levels

Recorded this term

No released grades for this term.

Recorded offerings over time

Find your next class

33 courses

Seminar on computation and informatics in biology and medicine.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Seminar where Biotechnology Training Program trainees present research and internship work for critical review and discussion of industrial biotechnology applications.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Biochemical Engineering covers properties of biological molecules, enzyme kinetics, metabolic engineering, microbial growth, bioreactor design, and bioseparations.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Quentin Dudley

Lectures were 75-minute, slide-heavy presentations that some found disengaging, requiring students to actively manage their attention during the long sessions.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Introduces methodologies for engineering protein structure and function, integrating computation and experiment to solve biological molecular engineering problems.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Eric Shusta

The class was described as hard, with the instructor diving directly into the material.

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2026–Spring 2026 · limited sample

Cooperative Education Program course applying engineering theory and practical knowledge to full-time professional workplace settings.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

No recorded grade history

Introduction to Chemical Engineering provides an overview of the field, covering career types, industries, and skills needed for degree completion and professional entry.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Dan Klingenberg

The student rated the difficulty as low and described the class as not too hard.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Process Synthesis introduces inventing processes for large-scale, low-cost processing of materials like water, chemicals, petroleum products, food, drugs, and wastes.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Katelyn Dahlke

The course required lengthy weekly homework assignments, and exams were described as hard and often too long for the time provided. Students also reported receiving homework on material not yet covered in class.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Introduction to chemical process modeling and using modern computational tools to analyze these models.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Katelyn Dahlke

Past students noted that the course involved long homework assignments and projects, requiring significant time investment to complete.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Introduction to thermodynamics, energy balances, steady/unsteady processes, pure fluid behavior, and chemical reaction equilibria.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Rahul Sujanani

Students described exams as difficult and noted that one reviewer felt the tests covered topics only vaguely related to classwork, with no practice exams provided.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Covers properties of ideal/non-ideal vapors and liquids, multicomponent VLE/LLE, reaction equilibria, electrolytic solutions, surface and solid phase thermodynamics.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Reid Van Lehn

Lectures were derivation-heavy with few practical examples, and homework problems required significant use of Excel or Matlab.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Introductory Transport Phenomena covers mass, momentum, and energy transport, including transport coefficients, viscous flow, heat conduction, diffusion, and dimensional analysis.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Daniel Klingenberg

The class involved a significant amount of homework that often took a long time to complete. Exams were described as tough and expected high standards, though they were generally considered fair and well-prepared for.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Transport Phenomena Lab focuses on determining thermodynamic and transport properties, transfer coefficients, and studying related phenomena.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Katelyn Dahlke

One student described the workload as high, particularly at the start, and criticized the strict emphasis on professional formatting rules.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Analysis of chemical engineering operations involving fluid flow and heat transfer, covering flow through ducts/porous media, particulate motion, and conductive/convective/radiative heat exchange with/without phase change.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Ross Swaney

Homework and exams were heavily lecture-based, with the textbook serving mostly as a reference. Students recommended heavily utilizing the textbook and TA office hours to prepare.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Statistics for Chemical Engineers covers concepts and techniques from statistics, data science, and machine learning applied to chemical engineering problems, including random variables, estimation, and decision-making under uncertainty.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2026–Spring 2026 · limited sample

Mass Transfer Operations covers analysis of chemical engineering operations involving mass transfer, including differential and stagewise separation processes, simultaneous heat and mass transfer, and design of mass-transfer equipment.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Ross Swaney

Homework assignments were very challenging, and exams were written to be tricky but doable with practice.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Chemical Kinetics and Reactor Design covers analysis of kinetic data, catalytic phenomena, and application of engineering principles to chemical reactor design.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Marcel Schreier

The subject matter is described as hard, requiring students to manage a challenging curriculum.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Process Design covers the analysis and design of chemical processing systems and equipment.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Ross Swaney

Project information was scattered across five to six different PDFs, and the class consistently ran behind schedule, requiring students to manage fragmented materials.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Systematic introduction to dynamic behavior and automatic control of industrial processes. Labs use conventional hardware and real-time digital computers for instrumentation and control.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Ross Swaney

One student found the content so challenging that they preferred sleeping in class to trying to understand the instruction.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

HONORS IN RESEARCH covers undergraduate honors research projects supervised by faculty members for students declared in the Chemical Engineering Honors in Research Program.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

No recorded grade history

Heterogeneous Catalysis: Principles and Applications discusses catalytic phenomena, extends to reactor design and catalyst characterization, and uses examples from current problems in catalysis.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2024–Spring 2026 · limited sample

Polymer Science and Technology covers the synthesis, properties, and fabrication of plastic materials of industrial importance.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2023–Spring 2026

Chemical Engineering and the Community connects students with local communities by developing and implementing two research-based hands-on engineering demonstrations for middle school after-school science programs.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2025–Fall 2025 · limited sample

Special Topics in Chemical Engineering covers topics of specialized interest to majors in the field, offered on demand.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · George Huber

One student found the exams difficult and niche, noting there were no practice problems or study guides provided, only over 1,000 slides of lecture content to review.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Instrumental Analysis for Chemical Engineers covers spectroscopic, optical, electrochemical, chromatographic, thermal, and microscopic methods for chemical and physical processes.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2026–Spring 2026 · limited sample

Special Problems in Chemical Engineering involves research or independent study where students conduct and report on independent chemical engineering research.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026 · limited sample

Intermediate Transport Phenomena covers mass, momentum, and energy transport, kinetic theory, equations of change, boundary layers, turbulence, and multicomponent diffusion.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Past student reviews · Daniel Klingenberg

The class was one of the hardest courses the student had ever taken, though they attributed the difficulty to the challenging material rather than poor teaching.

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2023–Spring 2026 · limited sample

Graduate cooperative education program combining classroom theory with practical work experience to enhance professional careers for MS students.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

No recorded grade history