Class of 1966 (PhD), Mechanical Engineering

Part 1: “They had the power of Hoover Dam in that little tin can”

John Swanson began his engineering career at Westinghouse, where he worked on the NERVA nuclear rocket program and learned computer programming—a skill he would apply to his PhD dissertation research in applied mechanics at Pitt in the late 1960s. In 1970, he founded Swanson Analysis Systems, Incorporated (ANSYS), a software company which grew from three people working out of Swanson’s farmhouse in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania to a 4,000-person company distributing software globally. In 2004, he received the Fritz Medal, the highest award in the American engineering profession. In 2007, he made a gift of $41.3 million to the University of Pittsburgh’s engineering school. Today, it is named for him: The John A. Swanson School of Engineering.

John Swanson, Part 1

PittEngineering