James Swan, an associate professor of chemical engineering at MIT, died Nov. 5, following a medical event. He was 39. Swan, who joined the MIT faculty in 2013, had recently earned tenure and held the Class of ’22 Career Development Chair. His research focused on how microstructured materials, particularly nanoparticles, can be manipulated for the benefit of society. His lab also studied the structure and dynamics of soft matter, which includes gels, colloids, and many biological materials. Paula Hammond, an MIT Institute Professor and head of MIT’s Department of Chemical…
