AOCS Continuing Education Program

Advance your career and learn new skills

Live Courses

Check back soon for upcoming live courses.


Courses On Demand

Learn from experts and advance your career with on-demand training, designed to fit into your busy schedule. On-demand access includes access to recordings, slides, and course materials for 30 days.

Edible Fats and Oils Processing: Basic Principles and Modern Practices

This program offers a high-level look at core aspects of processing edible fats and oils. It is suitable for non-chemists and people who are new to the industry as well as those with more experience who would like to refresh and update their knowledge. 

Registration for all attendees includes access to lecture recordings, slides, and curated supplemental materials that expand on course topics for 30 days.

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Fundamentals of Soap Technology: Composition, Manufacturing, and Applications

This course is a collaboration with the Society of Cosmetic Chemists (SCC).

This course breaks down the intricacies of soap in a series of focused lectures taught by innovative instructors and organized by world-renowned soap expert Luis Spitz. You will learn the history of soap creation and how it has evolved into modern-day practices. Additionally, you will discover the standard soap manufacturing processes, as well as the machinery used to achieve desirable results for a vast range of consumer expectations. You will also learn the projected trends and challenges in the future of soap creation.

Registered attendees can access recordings, slides, and course materials for 30 days.

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Beyond Triglycerides: Applications for Unique Plant-based Lipids in Personal Care

This course is a collaboration with the Society of Cosmetic Chemists (SCC).

This informative course focuses on non-triglyceride plant-lipids and their uses in personal care products. Content is divided into three lectures, each lasting two hours, to better fit your busy workday. The lectures examine the chemical properties of lipid components including tocopherols, sterols, triterpenes, phenols, phospholipids, ceramides, sphingolipids, galactolipids, and waxes. The course also explores how the different functional groups of these components produce their chemical properties, and, in turn, how those chemical properties can be used to produce specific product performance characteristics.

Registered attendees can access recordings, slides, and course materials for 30 days.

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Fundamentals of Spectroscopy in the Analysis of Fats and Oils

This online training course focuses on the value of spectroscopy in the analysis of fats and oils. This course will demystify the physics and science of common spectroscopic techniques including Raman, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and near-infrared (NIR). Attendees will develop a firm foundational understanding of spectroscopic techniques and how these methods can be applied for better lipid analysis.

Registered attendees can access recordings, slides, and course materials for 30 days.

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Statistical Design of Experiments Training

Design of experiments (DOE) is a useful data collection and analysis tool that can be used in a wide variety of experiments. A DOE is often a critical part of research papers submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals; it shows the author’s experimental analysis method and allows editors and reviewers to validate the experiment’s outcomes.

This two-hour course offers statistical design of experiments training intended to provide a basic level of understanding of DOE concepts so that all parties will have a better idea of good design and analysis practices. After defining the key aspects of designs and the resultant analyses, examples of DOE in several papers are discussed.

Registered attendees can access recordings, slides, and course materials for 30 days.

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High Oleic Oils: Development, properties, and uses

Based on the industry-leading book by the same title, this online high oleic oils course will address practical applications of this new and dynamic category of fats and oils that are essentially replacing partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) in various food and nonfood uses.

The course provides an overview of several common types of high oleic oils, their composition, nutritional value, and applications in consumer and industrial products. Course participants can also purchase the High Oleic Oils: Development, Properties and Uses eBook at a 50% discount as part of their course registration. Contact Karen Kesler at Karen.Kesler@aocs.org to register with the eBook.

Registered attendees can access recordings, slides, and course materials for 30 days.

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Chocolate Science and Processing: An applied perspective on how to process chocolate from bean to bar

This course is a collaboration with the Professional Manufacturing Confectioners’ Association (PMCA).

Learn at your own pace from Dr. Silvana Martini and Steve Bernet. This course discusses the process and science of chocolate manufacturing from bean to bar. The course includes three recorded lectures and hands-on demonstrations performed at the Aggie Chocolate Factory at Utah State University. Registrants will gain a basic understanding of the process of making chocolate focusing on tips and troubleshooting.

Registered attendees can access recordings, slides, and course materials for 30 days.

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Design of Lamellar Gel Network Emulsions for Personal Care and Cosmetics Application

Learn at your own pace from Ricardo Diez, Adjunct Professor at Rutgers University, USA.

This course will provide a detailed overview of the science and technology of these commercially important materials. The course will highlight the lamellar gel network (LGN) model developed by our course instructor Ricardo Diez and demonstrate its use to design key aspects of cosmetic and personal care emulsions, from sensorial properties to stability and scale-up, as well as delivery of actives.

Registered attendees can access recordings, slides, and course materials for 30 days.

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Lipids in Personal Care and Cosmetics

Learn at your own pace from Benjamin Schwartz, Senior Personal Care Application Specialist, AAK USA Inc.

This course provides a detailed look into the roles that plant-based lipids play in personal care and cosmetic formulations. Benjamin Schwartz, Senior Personal Care Application Specialist, AAK USA Inc. highlights how the structure of fatty acids found in plant-based lipids, and more importantly the triglycerides and wax esters that contain them, determine the interdependent properties of oxidative stability, compatibility, solid fat content, and crystallization types of various oils, fats, and waxes. Take this course to learn how these properties can inform choices of oils, fats, waxes, and their derivatives within different personal care and cosmetic products, including anhydrous and emulsion-based products.

Registered attendees can access recordings, slides, and course materials for 30 days.

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Formulations and Applications of Lipids in Personal Care and Cosmetics Bundle

For the first time, AOCS is offering a bundle featuring three AOCS Continuing Education Program courses and bonus content, all packaged neatly for the best user experience. This all-new course bundle covers lipids' unique roles in personal care and cosmetic formulations and applications with courses that expressly complement each other.

Whether you are a student, a young professional, an industry leader, or somewhere in between, you will learn from experts at your own pace to enhance your personal care and cosmetics knowledge and advance your career.

By purchasing the bundle, you will have access to the following:

  • 33% off the price of the three individual courses
  • Nine recorded lectures from three different courses taught by personal care industry experts Benjamin Schwartz and Ricardo Diez
  • Video transcripts that allow you to follow along with the lectures or easily refer back to specific details from the courses
  • Presentation slides with key course information
  • Bonus presentations for an extra knowledge boost

All course materials will be available for 60 days after purchase.

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