W. Mark Saltzman, a chemical engineering graduate of Iowa State University, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). He is one of three Iowa State University College of Engineering alumni who are part of the current class elected the Academy.
Saltzman, who is the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering at Yale University, is recognized by the Academy for his contributions in drug delivery, biomaterials and tissue engineering that have led to improved patient treatments.
Graduating with distinction from Iowa State with a B.S. in chemical engineering in 1981, Saltzman then 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.
An engineer and educator, his work is described in more than 300 research papers and patents and he is the sole author of three textbooks. He 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 more than 275 invited lectures throughout the world.
Over the past three decades he 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.
Saltzman was honored by Iowa State’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE) in 2016 when he was inducted into the department’s Hall of Fame, and also currently serves on the department’s Advisory Council.
”We are extremely proud of Mark for all of his accomplishments. His induction into the National Academy of Engineering is a tremendous honor, and well deserved,“ said Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering chair Andrew Hillier.
Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature and to the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.
Individuals in the newly elected class will be formally inducted during a ceremony at the NAE’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 30, 2018. A list of the newly elected members and foreign members follows, with their primary affiliations at the time of election and a brief statement of their principal engineering accomplishments can be found here.