The goal of the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering is to address two of the most  critical societal needs of the 21st century: (1) affordable energy and control of man-made threats to the environment, and (2) the creation of biological matter and structures in order to treat diseases at the cellular and molecular level.  To meet these goals requires advances in the experimental, theoretical, and computational tools for understanding and manipulating matter from the smallest to the largest scales both in quantity (from the lab bench to the conveyor belt) and in size (from the nanoscale to macroscopic).  Thus, as the name of the Department suggests, the faculty of the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Science have a wide range of research interests, spanning areas in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, and in Materials Science. Subject areas range from the study of advanced semiconductor materials and nano¬structures, advanced ceramics and metal comp¬osites, biotechnology, advanced computation, membrane separations, reactor design, and oil and gas exploration. This wide variety of interests has grown recently through the recruitment and mentoring of new faculty, and is likely to grow even further with the additional recruitment in the near future of new tenure-track faculty. Thus, the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Science offers a richly diverse research environ¬ment with investigators at many different stages in their scientific careers. 

Within the Department, we have extensive core facilities for materials characterization and imaging, biotechnology research, and for advanced computa¬tion, including the Nano¬structure Mat¬erials and Devices Laboratory, the Center for Photonic Technology, the Center for Electron Micro¬scopy and Microanalysis, the Center for Comp¬osites Research and the Center for Inter¬active Smart Oilfield Technologies among others.

The faculty currently supports their research efforts through an aggressive grant application strategy that includes both individual and program grant support. Current sources of support include the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, NASA, NIH, the Department of Defense, and a number of Foundations, State Agencies and private industries. 

The Department offers M.S. and Ph.D. programs in Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, and Petroleum Engineering. Our small-size classes are taught by easily accessible, full-time faculty. These elements create the personalized educational opportunities of a small private school amid the extensive resources and facilities of a large research university. In addition, the Department offers all of its M.S. degrees through USC's Distance Education Program. 

Through this broad array of research and educational activities, we aspire to create innovative, dynamic, and cutting-edge under¬graduate, graduate, and post-doctoral experiences, which will create graduates who will be the leaders of this 21st century.