Bootstrapping a New Graduate Curriculum through an Engineering Research Center

NSF Generation-3 Engineering Research Centers (ERCs) are charged both with advancing the state-of-the-art in terms of engineering and scientific research as well as training a well-qualified workforce in the domain of expertise. Such an ERC was awarded in 2008 to North Carolina A&T State University (NCAT), with the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) and the University of Cincinnati (UC) as the core US research partner institutions. The focus of this ERC, the ERC for Revolutionizing Metallic Biomaterials (RMB) is the development of advanced materials and processes targeted at the biomedical implant and device industry. NCAT has strong research and education programs in its mechanical, industrial, chemical and electrical engineering department, but it is the two other core research partner schools that brought in strengths in biomedical engineering and biomaterials. The challenge, then, was to bootstrap graduate instruction at NCAT by offering key courses that could quickly bring students up to speed in the concepts required to transition from engineered materials research to biomaterials research. This paper discusses the authors’ experience with the first two of those courses that resulted.