Aaron earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1994, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996 and 2000, with a thesis in block polymer synthesis and characterization. He then worked for DuPont Pharmaceuticals as a research engineer for one year before joining Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA in 2001, where his work focused on the scale-up, development, and commercialization of small molecule active ingredients. During his industrial career, he contributed to crystallizations, lab automation, process modeling, process safety, technology transfer, and general process development on several commercial products. Aaron recently joined Columbia University as a Professor of Practice in Chemical Engineering, where he is teaching undergraduate thermodynamics, lab and lecture courses in the area of pharmaceutical process development, and he supervises students on research projects. He may be contacted at ajm2293@columbia.edu.