Top Professors Changing Biomedical Engineering

Dominique M. Durand is the EL Lindseth Professor of Biomedical Engineering, as well as the director of the Neural Engineering Center at Case Western Reserve. He has published more than 120 peer-reviewed articles and is an IEEE fellow, a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biomedical Engineering, and a fellow of the Institute of Physics.

As the Elmer Lindseth Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve, Erin Lavik’s research is focused on “engineering polymers to protect and repair the nervous system and treat trauma more broadly.” In 2014, she became a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers.

As an associate professor of engineering at Case Western Reserve, Kenneth R. Laurita is also employed in the department of cardiology at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland. He has also been provided with numerous research grants, including a $1,150,000 grant for a project titled “Cell repolarization, alternans, and arrhythmogenesis.”

Jozsef Vigh is an associate professor in the department of biomedical sciences at Colorado State University. His list of authored publications is extensive, and he teaches and coordinates many of the neurons, circuits and behavior courses at CSU.

As an associate professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering at Colorado State University, Ketul C. Popat researches biomaterials and tissue engineering, nanotechnology, drug delivery, and other fields. He has also been the recipient of quite a few awards, including the George T. Abell Outstanding Early Career Faculty Award in 2010.

Stuart A. Tobet is a professor of biomedical engineering at Colorado State University. His research focuses include developmental neurobiology, biosensors, cell migration, neuroendocrinology, and hormone action.

Helen H. Lu, as a professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, focuses on interface tissue engineering and mechanisms of soft tissue to bone integration, among other realms of study. She is also the chair of graduate studies within the department, and is the recipient of the Society for Biomaterials Young Investigator Award.

Jennifer H. Elisseeff is the Jules Stein Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, where she works in the Wilmer Eye Institute and Biomedical Engineering, Translational Tissue Engineering Center. For a period of time she was a fellow at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Pharmacology Research Associate Program, and in 2009 she founded Aegeria Soft Tissue and Tissue Repair.

Michael I. Miller is the Herschel and Ruth Seder Professor and University Gilman Scholar within the biomedical engineering primary faculty at Johns Hopkins University. He is also the director of the Center for Imaging Science, and the co-director of the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute.

Taekjip Ha is a professor within the biomedical engineering faculty at Johns Hopkins University. He has published a large amount of authored work, and his research is "focused on pushing the limits of single-molecule detection methods to study complex biological systems."

Conor J. Walsh is an assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He founded the Harvard Biodesign Lab, and he leads a team of researchers on the DARPA Warrior Web project to “develop a soft exosuit that can assist with locomotion that can perform small levels of assistance to a wearer.

Andrew Brightman is the assistant head of biomedical engineering as well as an associate professor of engineering practice at Purdue University. His research generally focuses on tissue engineering extracellular matrix signaling molecules, oxidative stress, episystemic mechanisms, chronic stress and health impact, and ethics pedagogy in engineering.

Eric A. Nauman is a professor of mechanical engineering, basic medical sciences, and biomedical engineering at Purdue University, where he also serves as the director of the honors program in the college of engineering. His list of awards is extensive and includes the 2010 Purdue University Faculty Scholar award and the 2010 B.F.S. Schaefer Outstanding Young Faculty Scholar Award.

As an associate professor of biomedical engineering, of psychological sciences, and of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, Eugenio Culurciello centers his research on analog and mixed-mode integrated circuits with applications to biomedical instrumentation, among other fields. He has also co-authored and authored a host of different publications, with one, A Biomorphic Digital Image Sensor, being cited 283 times.

Ellis Meng is a professor and chair of biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering. She has a number of authored publications, including Biomedical Microsystems in 2010, and was recognized as a 2009 TR35 Young Innovator Under 35 for her work in next generation drug delivery pumps.

Norbert Pelc is the Boston Scientific Applied Biomedical Engineering Professor, the Shriram Chair of Bioengineering, and a professor of bioengineering and of radiology and, by courtesy, of electrical engineering at Stanford University. His list of awards includes the Edith Quimby Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014, as well as the Young Investigator Award in both 1999 and 2003.

Russ Altman is the Kenneth Fong Professor and professor of bioengineering, of genetics, of medicine, and, by courtesy, of computer science at Stanford University. His main interests lie within the “application of computing technologies to basic molecular biological problems, no referred to as bioinformatics.”

Michael Yeager, an assistant professor of pediatric critical care and bioengineering at the University of Colorado at Denver, focuses on how the lung vasculature operates during episodes of acute and chronic inflammation. From 2004-2006 he was a post-doctoral fellow with the National Jewish Research & Medical Center, and has co-authored a number of articles throughout his education and tenure.

As a professor and chair of the bioengineering department at the University of Colorado at Denver, Robin Shandas works in the development of novel methods for translational bioengineering. He has assisted in starting four companies, and he pioneered the Echo PIV technique, an opaque flow velocimetry technique for measuring details of cardiovascular blood flow through high frame rate ultrasound imaging coupled with contrast backscatter.