Brewing engineers: Inside CU Boulder’s new food engineering program
ǰCarmen Pacheco, food isn’t just something you eat. It’s a complex, interconnected set of culture, stories and engineering that she is using to build one of CU Boulder’s most innovative academic ventures.
Pacheco, a faculty member in thePaul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, is the architect behind theFood Engineering Graduate Certificate. Launched in 2024, the program was designed to introduce engineering students to the science behind their favorite foods and career opportunities in the food industry.
The certificate program, inspired by a pioneering Design of Coffee course at UC Davis, is among the first of its kind in higher education. Pacheco says it can reinforce scientific concepts that students can apply to any engineering discipline.
“We use universally recognized products like coffee and cacao as mediums to learn engineering principles, but they also have the ability to provide transferable skills,” said Pacheco. “We aren’t trying to produce baristas or chocolatiers. We want students to gain an understanding of engineering systems—understanding and evaluating the process from the beginning all the way to the final product.”
Early path to food engineering
Growing up in an immigrant family, Pacheco felt a close connection to food. She learned all the cultural dishes that embodied her youth, even creating a bilingual cookbook to preserve her family’s traditional recipes.
Faculty member Carmen Pacheco (middle) working with students in the Design of Coffee course.
As her cooking skills grew stronger, Pacheco found herself thinking about food in a new way. It wasn’t just recipes anymore—she also began questioning the functions of ingredients and thinking about the ratios of spices and herbs.
One day, while selling her homemade mole sauce, Pacheco asked herself an interesting question: How can food become a fun educational tool for teaching engineering students?
“I used to bring salsa into my freshman-level chemistry class to teach mechanical engineers about acidity, like the pH of a tomatillo versus a roasted tomato, or understanding hydrogen-ion concentration,” Pacheco said. “The students had a nice response to using food in the classroom, and I became extremely passionate about it.”
That next semester, Pacheco founded the university’s first food engineering course: Design of Coffee.
“Boulder is a mecca for natural foods and people love coffee here. I pitched the class to my faculty chair, explained its importance, demonstrated the teaching and before we knew it there was a class,” she said. “I didn’t know if people were going to sign up for it, but they did.”
Crafting a complete student experience
After the success of the Design of Coffee class, Pacheco was given the opportunity to take the one-off idea and sculpt it into a complete student experience. She added two additional food engineering courses—Design of Chocolate and Design of Beer—and worked with Associate Teaching ProfessorDan Riffell to curate the curriculum and align the classes with a wide range of elective offerings, creating a full-fledged graduate certificate program.
But Pacheco’s vision for the program wasn’t just about brewing coffee or malting beer.
Students working together in groups to brew coffee in the Design of Coffee course.
According to Pacheco, all foods have a story and understanding that story is crucial to its creation.
Take chocolate, for example. Over 75 percent of cacao is harvested in Africa via slavery and exploitation of cheap labor. It’s then shipped in bulk, often to privileged countries like the U.S. and Europe.
However, Africa sees little, if any, economic value, from its hard work.The profit is seen in countries where cacao is developed into chocolate bars and other treats.
“When the students learn the history of chocolate and its journey, they value and appreciate it more,” Pacheco said.
Coffee also has a story. Coffee trees take three to five years to mature and are extremely sensitive to climate change. They require heavy maintenance and chemicals to survive, which can be harmful to the environment.
That’s why Pacheco emphasizes sustainability as a key pillar in the course’s curriculum. Students learn to process coffee from scratch, using the least amount of energy possible.
“It’s important to educate students to close the gap between consumers and producers,” said Pacheco. “If consumers know where their food comes from or how it's made, they are more likely to be engaged in conversations about sustainability.”
The future of the program
In just one year, Pacheco has seen encouraging enrollment numbers. But she believes there’s room to grow.
She envisions a day when students will have access to a food engineering lab—a one-stop shop equipped with everything they need to roast coffee, process chocolate or malt beer.
She also hopes the program can one day be opened to a broader range of students across campus. Right now, only engineering students can apply, but allowing students from other majors could enrich classroom conversations.
The potential is endless, but Pacheco says the program’s core values will always stay the same.
“At the end of the day, engineering is not just math and machines—it’s the story of the people behind all of these materials,” Pacheco said. “We want this program to be a sustainable resource for both the local community and beyond.”