Chair of Biomedical Engineering Receives PACE Award

11/01/2013

Mark Saltzman, Goizueta Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemical & Environmental Engineering, & Physiology, has been selected to receive the Professional Achievement Citation in Engineering (PACE).

Established at Iowa State University in 1968, the PACE award acknowledges “superior technical or professional accomplishments in research, development, administration, education, and other engineering activities . . . [in] alumni/alumnae eminently known for their professional competence and creativity”—an expansive definition that characterizes Saltzman well. His pioneering research on drug delivery, biomaterials, nanobiotechnology, and tissue engineering has been described in more than 200 research papers, 2 edited books, and 15 patents, and Biomaterials named his work among the top 25 papers published by the journal over the past 25 years. His recent research with novel polymeric nanoparticles has been applied to gene therapy, wound repair, and drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier, as well as other areas.

Saltzman has previously been awarded the Allan C. Davis Medal as Maryland's Outstanding Young Engineer, the Controlled Release Society Young Investigator Award, and the Professional Progress in Engineering Award from Iowa State University; and he is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and a member of the Connecticut Academy of Science & Engineering.

In addition to his work in the lab, Saltzman is the founding chair of the Yale’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and sole author of the textbooks Biomedical Engineering, Tissue Engineering, and Drug Delivery. His achievements in the classroom have been recognized throughout his career, with teaching awards from Johns Hopkins, Cornell, and Yale, as well as the Distinguished Lecturer Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society. 

Saltzman credits the strong relationships he had with his professors at ISU for his success in the classroom. “I am sure that the attention to high-quality teaching I observed at Iowa State has been a huge influence on my own teaching career,” he says.

The PACE award will be conferred on Friday, Nov. 8, during ISU’s 82nd Annual Honors & Awards Ceremony. As Saltzman notes, “It’s a treat to be honored ‘back home.’”