Swati Arora was born in New Delhi, India. She received her Bachelor in Chemistry from St. Stephens College, Delhi University in 2009. She further pursued her Master’s in Organic Chemistry from St. Stephen’s College in 2011. She then moved to the USA in 2012 where she began her career in research in the Department of Chemistry at Purdue University, Indiana where she worked at the interface of Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology.

During her Master’s at Purdue University, she synthesized intermediates for Medicinal Chemistry applications using Organoborane and Fluororganic Chemistry. She further investigated light-toggled gene expression in mammalian cells which triggered her interest in Polymers for gene-delivery applications. This led her to continue her Ph.D. research in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh where she worked at the interface of Organic Chemistry and Polymer Chemistry and designed materials like doubly-polymerized ionic liquids and mechanophores for specific applications.

During her Ph.D. she also worked as an Intern at Pharmaceutical companies like AbbVie and Genentech where she was developed protein degraders for targeted protein degradation and investigated the formulation of Ocrevus, an FDA-approved drug for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, to change its mode of administration to reduce the associated health-care costs.

After graduating with her Ph.D., Swati is currently working as a Scientist-III, Process Research and Development at thermo Fisher Scientific, South Carolina USA where she is developing robust and scalable chemical processes for the commercial production of Active pharmaceutical ingredients for medicines. Outside of her research lab, she enjoys dancing and loves cooking Indian food.