Biomedical Engineering (MS/Ph.D)

The Department of Biomedical Engineering at University of Akron (UA) offers a Master of Science (MS) and a doctoral degree (PhD) in Engineering. An integrated MS/PhD program is available in cooperation with the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine(NEOUCOM).

To earn a Master's degree, students must complete a minimum of 33 credit hours made up of 27 credit hours of course work and six credit hours of thesis. A Master's thesis oral defense is required. PhD students complete a minimum of 96 credit hours in accordance with the guidelines established by the Biomedical Engineering department. Students must pass a departmental qualifying examination, candidacy examination and must present and successfully defend the dissertation to a College-wide Interdisciplinary Doctoral Committee. 

Admission Requirements

Applicants to UA's Biomedical Engineering Department must have an acceptable GRE score and a bachelor's degree with an academic record distinctly above average. Applicants whose native language is not English must have a minimum TOEFL score of 590(pbt) or 243 (cbt). Conditional admission is offered to students who are academically acceptable but who have not yet reached the level of English proficiency required for full admission. Students may enroll in the English Language Institute (ELI) for one or more semesters until they are certified as English proficient. Students enrolled in the ELI may not take undergraduate courses at the same time. Applicants who have satisfactorily completed nine months of full-time academic course work at a US college or university and are in good standing academically may have the TOEFL requirement waived upon written request to the Office of International Programs.

Akron Advantage

Graduate studies are designed to be flexible enough to accommodate students with varied backgrounds and to promote an interest in theoretical and applied research while preparing the student for a career in industry or academic pursuits. Collaborative projects between the department and the medical community create unique opportunities for training that involve basic sciences and their applications. The Department of Biomedical Engineering occupies 7,400 square feet of classroom, laboratory and office space in the Sidney L. Olson Research Center. Research programs in the department are carried out not only in the facilities of the department, but also in laboratories in Akron City Hospital, Akron General Medical Center, Saint Thomas Hospital, Edwin Shaw Rehabilitation Hospital, NEOUCOM and local industrial research centers. Laboratories within the program are involved in a variety of services: image detectors, devices and biosensors; biostereometrics; motion analysis; vascular dynamics; human interface and rehabilitation engineering; and medical instrumentation. Computing-based classrooms with biomedical engineering discipline-specific software are available.

Additional Information

Students can concentrate their studies and research in one of two specialization tracks: Instrumentation, Signal and Imaging Science, and Biomechanics Biomaterials. Over 30 graduate level courses have been developed in these two areas. Specializations in the first track include imaging devices & biosensors, signal & image processing, cardiovascular hemodynamics and musculoskeletal analysis. Those in the second track include orthopedic implants, soft & hard tissue biomechanics, human interface technology, rehabilitation engineering and biostereometrics.