Sarah Swerdlow PhD

Sarah J. Swerdlow, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Greensburg. She primarily teaches microbiology, medical microbiology and senior capstone research projects. Her research involves identification and characterization of the genes responsible for controlling host range in bacteriophages infecting Actinobacter sp. She implemented the Science Education Alliance—Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) and Science Education Alliance- Gene-function Exploration by a Network of Emerging Scientists, (SEA-GENES) program, which are jointly administered by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and University of Pittsburgh. She has been actively involved in her local Allegheny Branch of the American Society of Microbiology (ABASM) for her entire career. After completing her second term as president-elect, she is currently historian.

Swerdlow earned her B.S. in molecular biology and biotechnology from Clarion University (now PennWest Clarion) and her Ph.D. in the cancer biology program at Case Western Reserve University (CASE). She then taught for a year at Bowling Green University-Firelands Campus in Sandusky, Ohio and conducted a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health—National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in Research Triangle Park, N.C. She taught at Thiel College for 10 years and was a tenured associate professor before moving closer to her family and teaching at her current position.