Mark Swihart is a SUNY Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. His research interests include synthesis, processing, and applications of nanoparticles and nanomaterials. His group has been first in the world to demonstrate several applications of silicon nanocrystals in bioimaging. They are also widely known for their work in solution phase synthesis of anisotropic and multi-component nanomaterials, and for computational studies of gas-phase nanoparticle synthesis. More recently, they have developed a new process for gas phase production of multi-component metal nanoparticles, and have advanced the solution-phase synthesis of copper chalcogenide-based plasmonic semiconductor nanostructures. 

Professor Swihart earned a BS in Chemical Engineering (summa cum laude, 1992) from Rice University and a PhD in Chemical Engineering (1997) from the University of Minnesota, as a National Science Foundation graduate fellow. He conducted postdoctoral research in the renowned Particle Technology Laboratory of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota before joining CBE@UB in 1998. Swihart has co-authored more than 180 peer-reviewed journal manuscripts and three book chapters, has co-edited three proceedings volumes, and is a co-inventor on five issued U.S. patents. He co-authored the 8th edition of Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics (Smith, van Ness, Abbott, and Swihart, 2017), which through the first seven editions was the best-selling chemical engineering textbook of all time. Dr. Swihart is a recipient of the Kenneth Whitby award from the American Association for Aerosol Research and the J.B. Wagner award from the Electrochemical Society, as well as several UB awards for research excellence. He was named “Professor of the Year” by the UB chemical engineering undergraduates five times, and received mentoring awards from UB’s Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program, Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, and McNair Scholars program. In 2015 he received the Meyerson Award, the university’s highest award for undergraduate mentoring. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Swihart serves as an editor for Aerosol Science and Technology, and on the Board of Consulting Editors of AIChE Journal. He has advised more than fifty current and former graduate students and more than 100 undergraduate researchers at UB.

• PhD, Chemical Engineering, University of Minnesota, 1997
• BS, Chemical Engineering, Rice University, 1992