Mark Saltzman, a chemical engineering graduate of Iowa State University, has been inducted into the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering Hall of Fame. He was honored as part of the department’s annual Awards Banquet.
An engineer and educator, Saltzman’s research has impacted the fields of drug delivery, biomaterials, nanobiotechnology, and tissue engineering. His work is described in more than 300 research papers and patents and he is the sole author of three textbooks.
The grandson of farmers from southern Iowa, Saltzman graduated with distinction from Iowa State with a B.S. in chemical engineering (1981) and earned admission to graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received an S.M. in chemical engineering (1984) and a Ph.D. in medical engineering (1987). He was appointed assistant professor of chemical engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 1987 and promoted through the ranks, becoming a tenured full professor in 1995. In 1996, he joined the faculty of chemical engineering at Cornell University, where he was named the first BP Amoco/H. Laurance Fuller Chair in Chemical Engineering. Dr. Saltzman moved to Yale University as the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering in July of 2002, and served as the founding chair of Yale’s Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2003-2015.
Dr. Saltzman has been recognized widely for his excellence in research and teaching. He has received the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Award (1990); the Allan C. Davis Medal as Maryland’s Outstanding Young Engineer (1995); the Controlled Release Society Young Investigator Award (1996); the Professional Progress in Engineering (2000) and Professional Achievement Citation in Engineering (2013) Awards from Iowa State University (2000). He has been honored by election as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (1997); a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society (2010); a Member of the Connecticut Academy of Science & Engineering (2012); a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2013), and an elected Member of the US National Academy of Medicine (2014). He has delivered over 275 invited lectures throughout the world.
Over the past three decades, Dr. Saltzman has taught dozens of college courses including Heat & Mass Transfer, Material & Energy Balances, Introduction to Biomedical Engineering, Drug Delivery & Tissue Engineering, Physiological Systems, and Molecular Transport & Intervention in the Brain.
A plaque in Saltzman’s honor has been placed on the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering Hall of Fame wall in the lobby of Sweeney Hall. Saltzman has also just begun a term on the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering Advisory Council.
Dr. Terry S. King, a fellow ISU chemical engineering alum, a former professor and department chair at Iowa State, and who is the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and acting president of Ball State University, was also inducted into the department’s Hall of Fame and will be officially recognized at a later date.