Dr. Erik Swanson is an innovative engineer who has spent most of his career working to make foil bearings easier for machinery developers to use by combining practical foil bearing development and testing experience with a deep analytical understanding of how they work. Erik got his start in the world of foil bearings in 1998 when he went to work for Mohawk Innovative Technology, Inc. (MiTi) as his first job after completing his PhD work at Virginia Tech in Dr. Gordon Kirk’s Rotordynamics Lab. Erik was the department head of the Department of Machinery Dynamics and Tribology when he left MiTi in 2002. At the start of 2003, Erik formed Xdot-Consulting. As Xdot grew through “Xdot Engineering and Analysis” and then “Xdot Bearing Technologies,” Erik maintained a dual focus on rotodynamic consulting and foil bearings. Xdot’s foil bearing business was acquired by Barber-Nichols in 2025. Erik accepted the position of Technical Fellow at Barber-Nichols, with a primary focus on foil bearing technology development and application to turbomachinery.

Dr. Erik Swanson has been working in the general area of rotordynamics and bearing testing since 1990, when he started at the VA Tech Rotordynamics Lab. As a consultant, he has performed rotordynamic evaluations of hundreds of machines, ranging in size from machines small enough to fit in a coffee cup to a nuclear steam generator train weighing nearly a million pounds—and just about every type of industrial turbomachinery in between. He has helped teach rotordynamic short courses to hundreds of engineers. He has been involved with testing and developing foil bearings since 1998 and is a recognized expert on the topic. Most of Dr. Swanson’s 35 publications are related to bearing development and testing. Dr. Swanson received his BS (1990), MS (1992), and PhD (1998) degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech. Dr. Swanson is a registered professional engineer in both Virginia and North Carolina.