Integrating Pharmaceutical Engineering Research in Graduate, Undergraduate, and Pre-College Educational Activities

New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University are both in New Jersey, a state in which the pharmaceutical industry has a dominating presence. Both schools now have graduate-level pharmaceutical engineering programs that contribute to address the educational needs of the industry, and they are both members of the NSF-sponsored, four-university (Rutgers U. (lead), NJIT, Purdue U., and UPR-Mayagüez) Engineering Research Center for Structured Organic Particulate Systems (C-SOPS). As a result, these institutions have developed additional educational tools to promote the incorporation of C-SOPS research advances in pharmaceutical engineering and in engineered structured organic particulate systems into the existing engineering curriculum at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as in high-school education. One of most significant outcome of these activities has been the development by C-SOPS researchers of specific graduate-level modular educational units (“modules”) on specific topics of relevance to pharmaceutical engineering. In addition, C-SOPS researchers have been involved in a number of other initiatives aimed at training undergraduate students through the REU program (Research Experience for Undergraduates), high-school teachers involved in the NJIT's RET program (Research Experience for Teachers), high-school students through the New Jersey Governor's School for Engineering at Rutgers University, and graduate students involved in C-SOPS-based research and in several IGERT programs (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training Program). In all cases, C-SOPS researchers have been actively engaged in bringing to the classroom the information and experience gained through their research efforts. This presentation briefly describes the whole range of the C-SOPS-based educational initiatives, showing how the current research activities have permeated the educational tools that were developed as a result.