Faculty Profile for Dr. Arzu Ari

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Dr. Arzu Ari is a physical therapist and a respiratory therapist by training with 25 years of experience as a manager, clinician, educator, and researcher. She is the first Turkish physical therapist who passed the National Board for Respiratory Care Exams for respiratory therapists and pulmonary function technologists. After she graduated from the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation at Hacettepe University in Ankara, the Turkish Republic, Dr. Ari completed her master’s degree in public health at Istanbul University. She received her second master’s degree in respiratory therapy and Ph.D. degree in higher education administration from Georgia State University. Currently, Dr. Ari teaches in the Department of Respiratory Care at Texas State University.

Teaching Interests

Dr. Ari has been teaching undergraduate and graduate-level courses since January 2000. She has maintained quality teaching and earned exemplary evaluations. Her overall teaching effectiveness and the overall rating for courses average from 4.5 to 5.0.

Since her employment in the Department of Respiratory Therapy at Texas State University in September 2017, Dr. Ari has developed three courses: (1) RC 5305, a new graduate-level applied research course. (2) RC 5307, an online graduate-level advanced seminar course, and (3) RC 3212, an undergraduate level online respiratory pharmacology course. In each course that she developed, Dr. Ari implemented one-on-one meetings, online supplements, lectures, in-class activities, student presentations, homework, projects, and discussion forums, exploding the advantages of each for the benefit of student learning.

Research Interests

Dr. Ari’s primary area of research is aerosol medicine which is closely tied to four major developments that have had a global impact on the practice of aerosol drug delivery to patients with pulmonary diseases by (1) Helping clinicians understand current practices of aerosol drug therapy, (2) Identifying the best practices of aerosol drug delivery not only in spontaneously breathing patients but also in the critical care environment. (3) Evaluating the performance of aerosol delivery devices to optimize inhaled drug delivery in patients with respiratory disorders and (4) Generating new concepts and methods that optimize aerosol drug administration to adults, pediatrics, infants, and newborns. Dr. Ari evaluates in-vitro characterization of medical aerosols from various types of aerosol delivery systems used in the treatment of pulmonary diseases to help improve drug delivery in adults, pediatrics, and infants. Her research laboratory is one of only a few in the world that can bring together the pharmaceutical, aerosol and respiratory care talent and infrastructure needed to support innovative research, build consensus and make strides in the field.

Dr. Ari’s current position affords her the facilities and the finances to continue her groundbreaking research in the field of respiratory care, which has a direct impact on the health of patients with lung diseases like asthma, cystic fibrosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in both the United States and abroad. Furthermore, her work is the foundation from which others are performing research with direct clinical applications. For example, her work has led to amazing contributions in novel methods of aerosol delivery to neonates, infants, children, and adults. With such outstanding accomplishments to date, Dr. Ari has been recognized as an outstanding researcher/professor in the field of aerosol research and her work received the prestigious Monaghan/Trudell Fellowship for Aerosol Technique Development from the American Respiratory Care Foundation three times in the past 10 years. She is also the recipient of the Mitchell A. Baran Achievement Award for Clinical Excellence in Aerosol and Airway Clearance Therapies and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Scholarship.

Dr. Ari’s interest in research has manifested in 85 conference proceedings, 89 peer-reviewed articles, 17 book chapters, 3 clinical practice guidelines, and 2 books. She is the first author of the book entitled “A Guide to Aerosol Delivery Devices for Respiratory Therapists, 2nd ed.” which was downloaded by approximately 3 million people around the world and translated into Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Turkish, and Arabic. I also co-authored several book chapters published in Egan’s Fundamentals of Respiratory Care, Rau’s Respiratory Pharmacology, Neonatal and Pediatric Respiratory Care, Aerosol Drug Delivery, and Cairo’s Respiratory Therapy Equipment. She has given 336 presentations at the national and international professional congresses.