Mastering the Art of Graduate Education
Pratap Khanwilkar is no stranger to the Swanson School of Engineering.
During his previous tenure as founding director of Pitt’s Coulter Translational Research Partners II Program, Khanwilkar played a key role in helping translate Pitt research into impactful medical solutions. Now, Khanwilkar is back in Benedum Hall to lead Bioengineering master’s students to success with two programs that leverage engineering, business, and medicine.
Khanwilkar was officially appointed the Director of Master's Programs and Professor of Practice in the Department of Bioengineering in 2024. Even with more than four decades of experience commercializing medical devices and founding more than 25 start-up companies, Khanwilkar returned to Pitt for a role that he finds even more rewarding.
“I’ve realized that developing people is what gives me the most satisfaction now, even more so than starting and growing companies or developing new products,” Khanwilkar said. “I want to make a difference for our graduate students to succeed in their selected career path and in life.”
Khanwilkar is joined by Ouahiba Boukaabar, assistant director of Master’s programs, in leading and promoting the department's two non-thesis programs, Medical Product Engineering (MS-MPE) and Neural Engineering (MS-NE). Both of these degree programs provide students with a specialized bioengineering education while emphasizing professional development to encourage success in industry, nonprofit, and government careers.
About The Programs
The MS-MPE program, founded by Alan Hirschman, director of the Center for Medical Innovation and professor of bioengineering, has graduated more than 250 students in the past 12 years. With Khanwilkar’s background in medical device technology development and commercialization and the University’s interdisciplinary atmosphere, MPE graduate students, from a variety of backgrounds including engineering, nursing, medicine, and law are immersed in a well-rounded and uniquely collaborative program.
“The MS-MPE program places students at the center of the action by providing opportunities to connect and collaborate with the clinical and commercial worlds,” Khanwilkar said. “Our students gain hands-on experience with the entire product development lifecycle; they learn directly from faculty with real-world expertise and develop the skills to collaborate across and within diverse clinical settings, which employers highly value.”
Bioengineering’s Neural Engineering Master’s Program also emphasizes collaboration, with an academic focus on the biology of the nervous system and how to treat neurological disorders, build clinical devices, and develop computational models from an engineering perspective. For founding director Neeraj Gandhi, students’ proximity to the School of Medicine is a key component of their success. Gandhi anticipates an increase in industry collaboration in the years to come.
“One of the most important considerations in running a master's program is placing students in successful careers post-graduation,” Gandhi said. “I’m looking forward to expanding our industry relationships for our students under Dr. Khanwilkar’s leadership.”
New Directions
Looking ahead, Khanwilkar wants to emphasize MPE graduates' impact on human health outcomes, increase flexibility in the program with specialized focus areas, and promote leadership development. He also hopes to expand the program’s reach through online offerings from greater collaboration with industry, alumni, UPMC, the Schools of the Health Sciences including Medicine, Nursing, Rehabilitation, the Katz Graduate School of Business, the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, and the Innovation Institute.
Even with these improvements in mind, Khanwilkar believes that for students and experienced professionals alike, Swanson’s bioengineering master’s programs are the place to be.
“We are exceptionally close to UPMC clinicians through an extremely collaborative relationship developed over decades, and the clinical access, interactions, and insight that students get here enabled by the close proximity between the two disciplines is unparalleled,” Khanwilkar said. “Having helped develop medtech ecosystems around the US and the world for over 40 years, I believe that the bioengineering-clinical collaboration at Pitt is the best in the world."
Dr. Khanwilkar is eager to collaborate with alumni, industry partners, and supporters to shape the future of the MS-MPE program. If you’re interested in contributing, please email khanwilkar@pitt.edu to engage with and support Pitt Bioengineering’s next generation of innovators.