Bioengineering

Entry requirements

Students with bachelor’s degrees in the natural sciences, mathematics, or engineering are invited to apply for admission.

Through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, prospective students apply for doctoral study at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). These programs lie at the interfaces of engineering, the applied sciences (from biology to physics), and technology. When applying, select “Engineering and Applied Sciences” as your program choice and your degree and area of interest in the Area of Study menu. You must complete the Supplemental SEAS Application Form as part of the online application process. Please read the form carefully and indicate your specific interests only in the area to which you are applying.

Months of entry

August

Course content

Bioengineering is a field within the engineering sciences area of study at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Prospective students apply through the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate of School of Arts and Sciences (Harvard Griffin GSAS). In the online application, select “Engineering and Applied Sciences” as your program choice and select “PhD Engineering Sciences: Bioengineering” in the area of study menu.

The bioengineering program is an interdisciplinary program that provides you an opportunity to interact with many areas of the University and Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals. You will learn how bioengineering integrates fundamental engineering disciplines such as thermodynamics and fluid mechanics with the physical and life sciences while drawing on mathematics and computational sciences. This convergence will enable you to understand the operation of living systems that leads to the design of novel solutions to address critical problems in medicine and biology.

Bioengineers at Harvard are making advances in bio-inspired robotics and computing, biometrics and motor control, cell and tissue engineering, biomaterials, and therapeutics. Examples of projects current and past students have worked on include embedding stretchable nanoelectronics into brain organoids to study brain development and developing injectable clotting agents to reduce blood loss.

Graduates of the program have gone on to a range of careers in industry in companies like McKinsey & Company and Medtronic. Others have positions in academia at MIT, Vanderbilt, and Stanford.

Fees and funding

5 years’ funding is guaranteed to all Harvard GSAS PhD students.

Applicants who are British citizens, normally resident in the UK and who are, or will be, graduates of a British university, are welcome to submit an additional application for a Kennedy Scholarship and/or a Frank Knox Fellowship. An application for either award is separate from and totally independent of an application to a particular programme. Frank Knox Fellowship funding is advantageous in the taught-master phase of a doctorate. Both awards offer significant social and networking benefits.