W. Mark Saltzman’s research interests include drug delivery to the brain, materials for vaccine delivery, and tissue engineering; he has published over 150 research papers, three books, two edited books, and 10 patents in these fields. He graduated with distinction from Iowa State University in 1981 with a BS in chemical engineering and pursued graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned an MS in chemical engineering in 1984 and a PhD in medical engineering in 1987. He joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University in 1987 as assistant professor of chemical engineering; he was promoted to associate professor in 1992 and professor in 1995. In 1996, he became professor of chemical engineering at Cornell University and, in 2001, he was named the first holder of the BP Amoco/H. Laurance Fuller Chair in Chemical Engineering. In 2002, he moved to Yale University as the Goizueta Foundation Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and in 2003 he became the first chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Dr. Saltzman’s honors and awards include: Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Award (1990); Allan C. Davis Medal as Maryland's Outstanding Young Engineer (1995); the Controlled Release Society Young Investigator Award (1996); fellow of the American Institute of Biological and Medical Engineers (1997); Professional Progress in Engineering Award from Iowa State University (2000); Britton Chance Distinguished Lecturer in Engineering and Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (2000); and Distinguished Lecturer of the Biomedical Engineering Society (2004).