NC State Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering

09/03/2026

Tucked away off Lake Wheeler Road in Raleigh, North Carolina, researchers are trapping greenhouse gas and turning it into a product with a ready market. 🐺💡

At NC State University’s Compost Facility and Research Cooperative, Pablo Ortiz Paciello, a graduate student in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering’s Biocarbon Utilization and Sequestration (BUS) Lab, is demonstrating a patent-pending technology to capture carbon emissions directly at the compost pile. 💨

Backed by funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Cotton Incorporated, Ortiz’s research and related technology aims to collect carbon dioxide before it can enter the atmosphere — and trap it inside mineral carbonate compounds as a value-added product used to clean wastewater.

Read more at the link below🔗
https://news.ncsu.edu/2026/09/nc-state-researchers-pioneer-new-carbon-capture-technology/

08/28/2026

Biological engineers know how to measure flow in streams, stormwater pipes, wetlands or even in gutters. The units are typically measured in cubic feet per second or liters per second. But what about tiny flows, 1,000 times smaller, that we encounter during our experiments?

Izzy Hedges and Georgia Reichling, rising seniors in Biological and Agricultural Engineering, turned to new technique! They designed a tipping-pipe system inspired by a Japanese Shishi-Odoshi bamboo water fountain!

They 3D printed the parts in Weaver Labs and used the electronics from an old tipping bucket rain gauge to automatically count the number and timing of the tips, and voilà! BAE now has a system to continuously measure tiny flows less than 10 milliliters per second. 🐺💡

The flowmeter is part of a larger project aimed at understanding how denitrification removes nitrate in watersheds. François Birgand, director of BAE graduate programs and professor, is designing lab experiments to understand how natural cleaning processes interact with polluted rainwater before it reaches rivers and streams. 🌊

08/20/2026

Collaboration is key 🐶🤝🐺

This week, BAE students and faculty traveled to Greensboro for the P3-Transdisciplinary Experiential Learning (TEL) Workshop at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University!

The three-day TEL in Food Animal Production Workshop, co-hosted by North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and North Carolina State University, brought students, faculty and researchers together across disciplines to learn by doing.

As part of the larger USDA-NIFA-funded Proactive Pig Production (P3) project, the event highlighted what the team aims to accomplish through hands-on learning. The workshop focused on combining animal science, engineering, environmental management, sensing technologies, and AI while preparing the next generation to address increasingly complex challenges in food animal production.🌱💡

08/20/2026

08/14/2026

In preparation for FDOC, we thought we’d give you a quick tour of our beloved Weaver Labs! ❤️💫 See you next week 😆

08/06/2026

What can you do with a Biological Engineering degree? 💡🥼

In the first episode of our Beyond BAE series, William Joe Sagues chats with BAE alum Rosie Maloney about her journey—from finding her passion for bioprocess engineering to forging a career she loves as a research associate at Novonesis.

Discover how the close-knit mentorship between BAE professors and students helps bridge the gap between the classroom and real-world career success.

Learn about her journey at the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf49X3LP-Ts

08/01/2026

That's a wrap on summer research for our undergraduate interns!☀️💡

Yesterday, NC State hosted the Summer Undergraduate Research & Creativity Symposium at Hill Library.

We loved seeing BAE's interns from other universities present on the research they conducted, while our own students shared the impactful research they completed with professors and organizations across the state.

What a motivated group of future engineers!

07/22/2026

How does sustainability fit into agriculture? George Hotelling, a BAE master’s student researching air quality and swine lagoon irrigation techniques, headed to Germany to find out! ✈️🇩🇪

Through the Sustainable Livestock Production study abroad course (BAE 495/502), George took part in immersive, hands-on learning alongside faculty from NC State’s Biological and Agricultural Engineering and Prestage Poultry Science departments.

We sat down with George to discuss cross-disciplinary innovation and how two weeks abroad deepened his understanding of what it truly means to farm sustainably.🌱💡

Read about his experience at the link below!

https://bae.ncsu.edu/news/2026/gaining-a-global-perspective-in-germany/

07/14/2026

NC State is well-represented at the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers' Annual International Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, this week! 💡🌎

Yesterday was packed with poster sessions, research presentations, and student competitions.

There are more competitions and presentations to come, so ! 🐺

American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE)