Peter W Swaan, Ph.D., M.Pharm.

Peter W. Swaan, Ph.D., M.Pharm., began his tenure as the eighth dean of the University of Florida College of Pharmacy on Dec. 1, 2022. Swaan previously served as the associate dean for research and advanced graduate education as well as a professor and chair in the department of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. While at Maryland, he was appointed a distinguished university professor in recognition of his extraordinary leadership and significant contributions to the pharmaceutical sciences.

Swaan is well connected to many of the nation’s largest and most prestigious pharmacy colleges. His academic and professional career includes stops at the University of Michigan; the University of California, San Francisco; the Ohio State University; and the University of Maryland. All four of these pharmacy colleges are featured in the top 15 of the U.S. News & World Report best pharmacy college rankings.

A highly cited researcher, Swaan has published more than 150 original research articles. He has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1998 and has secured more than $25 million in grant funding during his career. His research focuses on all aspects of transporters in drug targeting and delivery, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, with his major contributions to this research area involving the application of transporters as targets for prodrugs. He has pioneered the use of computational techniques to determine the structural requirements of membrane transporters, which has paved the way for the discovery of novel substrates and inhibitors. He also holds several U.S. patents on these and related technologies.

Since 2015, Swaan has chaired the Board of Grants for the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education, or AFPE. He has also chaired multiple committees within the American Association for Pharmaceutical Scientists and served on multiple NIH study sections. More than two dozen master’s and Ph.D. students have trained under his guidance, and in July 2022, he was awarded the AFPE William M. Heller Mentor of the Year Award.