Eric Carl Swanson received his PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from the University of Massachusetts Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Worcester. He graduated May 31, 2015, after successfully defending his doctoral dissertation in December 2014, titled “Higher-Order Unfolding of Peri/Centric Satellite Heterochromatin is an Early and Consistent Event in Cell Senescence.” Swanson is a Hays High School salutatorian from the class of 2004. He completed his undergraduate work in Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin in 2008. Swanson is the son of  (the late) Eric J Swanson and Carol Rodgers of Buda. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.