Rate My Professor W. Mark Saltzman

W. Mark Saltzman is the Sterling Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Goizueta Foundation Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, and Professor of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, Materials Science, Cellular & Molecular Physiology, and Dermatology at Yale University in the School of Engineering & Applied Science. He earned a B.S. in chemical engineering from Iowa State University in 1981 with distinction, an S.M. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984, and a Ph.D. in medical engineering from the Harvard/MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology in 1987. Saltzman began his academic career as an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 1987, advancing to tenured full professor by 1995. In 1996, he joined Cornell University as the inaugural BP Amoco/H. Laurance Fuller Chair in Chemical Engineering. He moved to Yale University in 2002 as the Goizueta Foundation Professor, where he founded and chaired the Department of Biomedical Engineering from 2003 to 2015, served as Head of Jonathan Edwards College from 2016 to 2022, and was appointed Sterling Professor of Biomedical Engineering in 2025.

Saltzman's research in biomedical engineering centers on drug delivery, biomaterials, nanobiotechnology, and tissue engineering, developing biocompatible polymeric materials for controlled release of drugs, proteins, and genes to improve medical therapies, including treatments for brain tumors, skin cancer, reproductive health protection, and gene editing. He has authored three influential textbooks: Drug Delivery: Engineering Principles for Drug Therapy (Oxford University Press, 2001), Tissue Engineering: Engineering Principles for the Design of Replacement Organs and Tissues (Oxford University Press, 2004), and Biomedical Engineering: Bridging Medicine and Technology, second edition (Cambridge University Press, 2015). His over 350 research papers include highly cited works such as "Synthetic DNA delivery systems" (Nature Biotechnology, 2000) and "MicroRNA silencing for cancer therapy targeted to the tumour microenvironment" (Nature, 2015). Saltzman's contributions have advanced clinical translations in organ transplantation and nanoparticle therapies. He has received the Founders Award from the Controlled Release Society (2017), election to the National Academy of Engineering (2018) and National Academy of Medicine (2014), Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society (2010), and numerous other honors including the Sheffield Teaching Prize from Yale (2009).