Energy, the environment, and health care are key challenges facing humanity in the twenty-first century. Chemical engineering is a discipline well placed to confront these challenges. Chemical engineering is rooted in the basic sciences of mathematics, chemistry, physics, and biology, a traditional engineering science core of thermodynamics, transport phenomena, and chemical kinetics, a rigorous design component, and an expanding focus on emerging topics in materials, nanotechnology, and life sciences. The discipline has grown from its petrochemical origins to become central to state-of-the-art technologies in microelectronics, alternative energy, biomedicine, and pharmaceutics.