She attended secondary schools in the 1970s, and graduated in 1980 from the University of Dar es Salaam with degrees in chemistry and statistics.

[5] In 2015, she returned to Tanzania[2] and joined the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) as a professor.

She is responsible for leading the NM-AIST's bid for the establishment of a World Bank-funded African Center of Excellence (ACE II project).

[6] She also sits on several other international expert committees, such as TB Global Alliance, ISHReCA, UNECA, Erasmus Mundus Nanofar, and the editorial board of the Journal of Nanomedicine.

[5][8] Swai is the 2020 recipient of the African Union Kwame Nkrumah Continental Science Award for Scientific Excellence for her work on the use of nanotechnology to study antimalarial drugs.