5.4 Master of Science Industrial Hygiene 5.4.1 …

5.4               Master of Science Industrial Hygiene
5.4.1             Purpose
       Provide Air Force officers and civilian career professionals with relevant graduate
education in the disciplines of industrial hygiene consistent with future duties across the
spectrum of Air Force environment, safety, and occupational health (ESOH) consulting and
management duties.
        The Graduate School of Engineering and Management, Department of Systems and
Engineering Management offers the Master of Science degree with major in Industrial
Hygiene (GIH). The GIH Program was designed to provide Air Force career professionals
with relevant graduate education in the principles of industrial hygiene. This program was
developed considering guidelines established by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and
Technology and subject areas from the Certification Exam for the American Board of
Industrial Hygiene. The GIH program was initially offered at the Uniformed Services
University for the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, MD, since its development in
coordination with the Environmental Engineering and Science (GES) degree. Both programs
were motivated by a request from the AF Bioenvironmental Engineering (BEE) career field.
This new program will be offered for the first time at AFIT in the Fall of 2006 and
capitalizes on existing coursework and research thrusts present in several AFIT departments.
The core curriculum includes course offerings in statistics, chemistry, risk assessment,
industrial hygiene, industrial ventilation, chemical fate and transport in the environment,
epidemiology, physiology, and toxicology.

5.4.2         Admission Standards and Procedures
The general requirements for admission to the Master of Science program in Industrial
Hygiene are:
      1.   A Bachelor's degree from an ABET accredited engineering program or a B.S. degree in a
           science related to environmental science, such as physics, biology, chemistry or industrial
           hygiene.

      2.   Math courses including calculus I,I,III and Ordinary Differential Equations.

      3.   A cumulative undergraduate GPA of 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale), 1100 GRE combined verbal and
           quantitative score.

NOTE: Deficiencies in the above areas may be waived or corrected through additional
coursework on a case-by-case basis by the Department of Systems and Engineering
Management.

5.4.3         Curriculum Description
        The GIH program is conducted in seven academic quarters and a short term (18 total
months, beginning in September) for full time students. The short term program is the same
program as required for the GEM/GES students and provides an orientation to the school and
curriculum, a review of basic mathematics and chemistry, an introduction to the computer
systems serving AFIT, and an overview of the environmental engineering and science
program.

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        The 48-quarter hour (QH) degree requirements for the Industrial Hygiene degree will
include specified core classes plus a specialty sequence, statistics course, thesis, and
electives. The specialty sequence is intended to develop students' in-depth knowledge of a
specific area of industrial hygiene/environmental health. A 12 QH thesis with oral defense
will also be required. The thesis must address a real-world problem in environment, safety,
and occupational health (ESOH). Principal purposes of the thesis are to demonstrate the
student's ability to integrate concepts and techniques acquired through course work and to
demonstrate scholarly pursuit of a focused research question, all of which leads to enhanced
capability of the graduate to pursue technical problems creatively and effectively across a
broad spectrum of areas. The additional coursework, in Public Health, Environmental
Toxicology and Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threat Protection, is indicated on the six-
quarter program full time students plan and will serve to enhance knowledge in those
subjects critical to the BEE career field. Electives are offered in addition to strict degree
requirements and broaden the student's horizons and/or provide more in-depth knowledge in
a specific area of interest. In addition to degree requirements, all DOD-sponsored full-time
students must complete roughly 12 credit hours per quarter over the total number of quarters
in residence, for a total of 86 credit hours.




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