Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
University of Iowa Graduate College
- BS, Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974
- PhD, Industrial and Physical Pharmacy, Purdue University, 1979
- First to prove adsorption-site specificity on the activated-carbon surface
- First to use X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to quantify functional groups on powder surfaces
- First to propose an adsorption equation which allows for simultaneous enthalpically-driven and entropically-driven adsorption mechanisms on heterogeneous adsorbent surfaces
- First to develop a compression calorimeter which continuously measures the true temperature inside of a powder bed being compressed or decompressed
- First to develop a compression calorimeter which has an accuracy of measurement comparable to indirect methods employing isoperibol calorimetry
Dale Wurster received his BS in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1974 and his PhD in Industrial and Physical Pharmacy in 1979 from Purdue University. Upon graduation, Dale joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) as Assistant Professor. Since 1982, he has served on the faculty of the University of Iowa in the Division of Pharmaceutics. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1987 and to Professor in 1996. From 2006-2012, he also served on the faculty in the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering. In addition to his faculty responsibilities, he has been Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the University of Iowa Graduate College since January 1, 2002.
Dale has taught various pharmaceutics courses for the PharmD students and has taught both surface phenomena and instrumental analysis at the graduate level. His research interests include: adsorption-desorption thermodynamics, determination of adsorbent surface composition, isoperibol and isothermal solution calorimetry, compression calorimetry, analytical applications of FTIR, and kinetics of chemical decomposition in micellar systems. Financial support has come from the Department of Defense, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the pharmaceutical industry. He is the author or co-author of over 190 peer-reviewed abstracts and research articles, and he has served as major professor for 30 PhD graduates. He is currently directing the dissertation research of three doctoral students.
Dale is an American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Fellow (1998), and the recipient of an AAPS Research Achievement Award in Manufacturing Science and Engineering (2009). He also has chaired both the AAPS Publications Committee and the AAPS Fellows Committee. Dale has served on various committees of the United States Pharmacopeia for 20 years, and has served on various committees of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy for 32 years.