Year after year, the two professors do the same thing for spring break. They head south. Every spring for the past eight years, Andreas Bommarius and Mark Prausnitz, top researchers in their field and faculty members of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, lead a rotating group of about 25 interdisciplinary students on a unique field trip to Puerto Rico, where they get an inside look at the island’s burgeoning pharmaceutical industry.

The annual five-day trip offers an exceptional perspective of industry for students at the Georgia Institute of Technology and it is the reason why Bommarius and Prausnitz were just named winners of the 2015 Innovation in Co-Curricular Education Award from the Georgia Tech Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning.

The award is given annually to faculty who increase student learning outside the traditional curriculum. Bommarius and Prausnitz will share the $3,000 cash award and be honored April 17 at the Faculty and Staff Awards Luncheon.

Open to full-time faculty of any rank who increase student learning outside the traditional curriculum and help Georgia Tech achieve its strategic goal of graduating global citizens who can contribute to all sectors of society. 

Initiatives may involve formal or informal out-of-class learning experiences that engage undergraduate and/or graduate students in opportunities to develop respect for other cultures, explore the leadership qualities and ethical behaviors necessary for contribution to society, and/or build on their innovative and entrepreneurial talents in order to have a positive impact on local, state, national and/or international arenas.

The annual Pharmaceutical Education Industry Plant Trip has become a rite of spring and an integral part of the Pharmaceutical Education Project, housed within the Center for Drug Design, Development, and Delivery (or CD4). Bommarius and Prausnitz, professors in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, are directors of the CD4.

From the outset, the professors designed the class to be interdisciplinary, inviting students from the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering – students who get a rare, up-close and comprehensive glimpse of the pharmaceutical industry at some the world’s top manufacturing facilities.