LCE was created in 12/02/1998 by Resolution 4615 of 11/12/1998, as a result of the ESALQs Departamental Reestruturation, aggregating teaching and non-teaching staff from the former Departments of Mathematics and Statistics and Physics and Meteorology and part of the staff of the former Department of Chemistry. This new departmental structure, despite having provided a greater interaction among the staff from the three groups, has brought several difficulties. Teaching, research and continuing education specificities have imposed different management practice for each group, besides the problem of different geographical location, and this is inadequate from the organizational point of view. From May 2009 onwards, after intensive discussions in the Department, Technical Administrative Council (CTA) and General Council meetings, the eight teaching staff and five non-teaching staff from the Physics and Meteorology group were reallocated to the Rural Engineering Department which was renamed as Biosystems Department, remaining in LCE the staff of Mathematics and Statistics (ME) and Chemistry (Q) groups who continued working separately as the fields of expertise are too different.
In January 2010, LCE had eight ME teaching staff, four Q teaching staff and four teaching staff positions (3ME, 1Q, left due to retirement or resignation); six ME non-teaching staff (two secretaries, two computer technicians and two administrative assistants) and six Q non-teaching staff (five laboratory technicians and one administrative assistant). In 2010, one laboratory specialist was moved from the Genetics Department (LGN) to the Q group of LCE and, in 2014, the secretary from Q asked for dismissal. In December 2014, LCE had 11 permanent teaching staff and one temporary lecturer in the ME group, five permanent teaching staff in the Q group, six ME non-teaching staff (two secretaries, two computer technicians and two administrative assistants) and six Q non-teaching staff (five laboratory technicians and one laboratory specialist). LCE has a retired lecturer as a Senior Professor, who continues developing research activities.
LCE staff teaches for six out of the seven ESALQ Undergraduate Programs (Agriculture, Forestry, Economics, Food Science, Biological Sciences and Environmental Management) and is responsible for 28 undergraduate courses, 20 for the ME group, six for the Q group and two (Supervised Internship I and II) for both groups. At graduate level, the ME group is the only responsible for the Master (created in 1964) and Doctoral (created in 1979) Programs in Agronomy (Agricultural Statistics and Experimentation) (PPGA.EEA). Two lecturers from the Q group participate in the Program in Sciences from Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture (CENA) and one in the Program in Agricultural Microbiology; another has participated in the Program in Soils and Plant Nutrition until December 2011.
