Dan Fifer came to UC Davis to become a structural engineer. Then an elective physiology class turned his attention to medicine. Soon, he says, "I realized I was as interested in the instrumentation and technology of medicine as I was in the application." He found he could have it all in the biological systems engineering major. Today he works at Arterial Vascular Engineering in Santa Rosa, designing tools used by cardiologists to open blocked arteries. Amanda Wald, on the other hand, knew her goal while in high school. "I really liked biology, and I took a drafting class and really liked the three-dimensional visualization and geometry. I wanted something that integrated the three of them," she says. Like Fifer, she found a match in biosystems engineering. Today she works for Underwriters Laboratories in Santa Clara, safety-testing medical and dental devices. Restructured by the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering in the fall of 1992, the undergraduate major in biological systems engineering teaches students to use engineering principles to solve problems in creating, processing and distributing biological products. The products can include human food, animal feed, fiber, medical devices and pharmaceuticals. The problems can be related to technical production issues, environmental quality, resource conservation and human health. It's a booming program designed to satisfy both the changing interests of students and the growing demand from industry for engineers who can speak biology. "Our students used to be agricultural engineering majors from farm backgrounds," says professor and major adviser Michael Delwiche. "Now very few are, but we remain the one branch of engineering that has as its core science that is not electrical phenomena, not Newtonian physics, but biology. And we've restructured our programs and curriculum to recognize the new breadth of areas that combine biology and engineering." The brightest of the bright The students majoring in biosystems engineering are the brightest of Davis' already bright young students. The academic index cutoff for 1998 high-school applicants, based on grades and Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, was the highest of all the majors at Davis -- 9,180 out of a possible 10,000. The index of enrolled students was also among the highest at UC Davis, at 8,875. What's more, the number of those outstanding scholars is on the rise. Applications for the annual 20 openings had leveled off by 1997 to about 125 -- and then came the deluge: 330 high-schoolers applied last spring. Department chair David Hills opened up an additional 10 places. This year, there are 140 biological systems engineering majors. A surprising number of students also come from cross-campus transfers, says staff adviser Leigh Ann Empie, and most of those are from biology majors. "There are a lot of students out there who have an engineering inclination but also like biology. They like working with an animal or a plant or fungus or cell," says Delwiche. "So when they get to Davis and start nosing around and find out what goes on here in biosystems engineering, we get a lot of them feeding in." Success stretches faculty and facilities That success has put quite a load on the faculty, a cross-disciplinary group of engineers based primarily in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, but also with joint appointed faculty from the departments of Agronomy and Range Science; Food Science and Technology; Land, Air and Water Resources; and Textiles and Clothing. While the UC Davis teacher-student ratio averages about 18, and the College of Engineering ratio is about 15, the biosystems engineering ratio is 23. "We don't have the resources," Hills says simply. But help is coming. A search is on for a new faculty member, a biomechanical engineer with a research emphasis on worker health and safety. Two more hires are planned -- a biotechnology engineer this year and a bioproduction engineer in 2000. A modest renewal of facilities is under way, too. The highly regarded research and teaching programs in agricultural machines and technology, long based in Bainer Hall, will soon move to the new Western Center for Agricultural Equipment. The $2.5 million center, located on Hutchison Drive near Highway 113, contains 18,000 square feet of space and is being built entirely through private contributions. The center will be named for the late Joe A. Heidrick Sr., a Woodland farmer who was a leader in farm-machinery development. While Hills had hoped to be in the facility by fall of 1998, a shortfall of $300,000 has delayed completion of the interior. The new goal is spring of 1999. In the Bainer Hall space where agricultural technology previously was taught, a new biological engineering laboratory has been constructed. The remodeled lab includes a clean room for purification of microbial products and studies of tissue culture, and a teaching lab for analytical chemistry, with a focus on biotechnology. In the next project, a new bioenvironmental engineering lab is planned for Room 1340 of Bainer. This lab will be used to teach the principles needed to transform organic residues -- such as cannery residues, rice straw and manure -- into useful products, such as food, animal feed and energy precursors, and to reduce pollution from agriculture and related industries. If $200,000 can be obtained, construction on the lab could begin later this year. Expanding professional specialties The specialized nature of the new teaching labs reflects the changing demands of industry and students. Davis biological systems engineering majors can select elective courses to develop professional specialties. In just the seven years since the major was instituted, the original list of available specialties -- agricultural, aquacultural or forest engineering -- has expanded to include biotechnical, ecological systems or premedical/biomedical engineering. All biosystems engineering majors must complete a senior design project to graduate. A sampling of recent and current projects demonstrates the program breadth that Delwiche describes. It also shows the important role that the School of Veterinary Medicine has assumed in giving the students hands-on experience. The projects include: Converting X-ray equipment designed for human patients to use for dog patients; Developing a device to test the strength of tiny balloons used to clear clogged human arteries; Building a device to collect multiple blood samples from a free-running race horse. (This project, Amanda Wald's, "took a lot more electrical engineering than I ever thought I'd be doing," she says wryly.); Identifying materials to use for internal bracing of leg fractures in horses; Modifying an exhaust valve on a small-animal respirator for use in large animals; Designing and building systems for controlling insect populations in orchards. (On a three-wheeled, all-terrain vehicle, senior Amy Beland mounted tanks and sprayers to disperse pheromones that interfere with mating; Devising a swing chair for children ages 6 months to 5 years who have upper-body paralysis. This project, under development now by three seniors, must give the users both physical support and enough freedom of movement to improve their visual and motor skills. "Our department's research expectations are more mission-oriented than basic," says Delwiche. "That permeates into the educational programs. Our students are exposed to more applied things than in other departments. And employers love that."