Department History

In 1953, a Food Processing Engineering program was established at SJSU. The name of the program was changed in 1956 to Chemical Processing Engineering. In 1958, the Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering Department was established. The department was subsequently renamed to Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Department in 1961. In 1963, Materials Science was split off from Chemical Engineering as a separate department. The Chemical Engineering program obtained its initial accreditation in 1966 by Engineers’ Council for Professional Development (ECPD, the former name of ABET) and the same year the MS Chemical Engineering Program was established. In 1995, the Materials Engineering department was merged back with Chemical Engineering to form the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering (CME). In July 2018, the Chemical and Materials Engineering Department was re-established after Biomedical Engineering was split off to its own department. Over the years, our graduates have enjoyed great success in academia, industry, and their chosen walks of life.