Speakers

Roderic Ivan Pettigrew, Ph.D., MD, is the Robert A. Welch Professor of Medicine, CEO of Engineering Health (EnHealth), and inaugural dean of the School of Engineering Medicine at Texas A&M University which offers the ENMED program in partnership with Houston Methodist where he is Adjunct Professor of Nanomedicne and Radiology and Member of the Center for RNA Therapeutics. He was the founding Director of the US National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) of the NIH [2002-2017], building it into the signature NIH institute for emerging medical technologies.

His newest undertaking is EnHealth, the world’s first initiative to holistically integrate engineering into all of the colleges of a university that is a part of the healthcare enterprise. ENMED is the first constituent initiative, creating a new school that integrates engineering into medical training to develop a new kind of innovation-minded physician, or Physicianeer, who invents solutions to healthcare problems. Of note, an invention is required of each ENMED graduate who will earn both an MD and a Master of Engineering Innovation in Medicine degrees in only 4years. In May 2023, ENMED will graduate its inaugural class as the World’s First Class of Physicianeers.

Dr. Pettigrew’s expertise is in health technologies emerging from the convergence of the life sciences, the physical sciences, and engineering. Earning a Morehouse BS in Physics as a Merrill Scholar, he is an MIT graduate in Applied Radiation Physics (PhD ’77) who finished his medical training in Nuclear Medicine at UCSD (’83), and is known internationally for his pioneering work involving four-dimensional imaging of the cardiovascular system using magnetic resonance (MRI). His current work is on predictive modeling of coronary atheroma and nanomedical strategies for disease inhibition.

Prof. Paul M Cunningham has over two decades of experience collaborating with key stakeholder groups to co-design and implement ethical, impactful, Sustainable Development policy, research and innovation, and implementation activities, including international conferences hosted by African and European governments. Paul is affiliated with IUM (Namibia) and Wrexham Glyndwr University (Wales).

Paul is the Executive Director of the not-for-profit policy and research IST-Africa Institute (www.IST-Africa.org), a strategic collaboration with 18 African ministries and national councils responsible for Innovation, Science and Technology policy, research, implementation, and adoption. Supported by the European Commission and African Union Commission, IST-Africa is a member of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN) and recognized by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as a WSIS 2018 Prizes Champion (International and Regional Cooperation).

As President & CEO of IIMC, Paul leads teams providing technological, strategic, and policy expertise to national and international government organizations and research programs, particularly in Europe and Africa. Paul’s international, interdisciplinary research track record was recognized by Enterprise Ireland (Irish Champion of EU Research – 2015, 2017).

Paul is a Past Director of IEEE Division VI and Past President and VP of Conferences at the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology. He previously served as Chair of the IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee. Paul is a Distinguished Lecturer with the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology. Currently, he serves on the IEEE in 2050 Committee, IEEE Conferences Committee, IEEE TAB Finance Committee, and IEEE TAB Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.

Yasemin M. Akay is an Instructional Associate Professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston. She received her B.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA.

She completed her Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (NIH) in the Departments of Pharmacology & Toxicology, the Department of Physiology Dartmouth Medical School, the Department of Biology, Dartmouth College, and in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics, Boston University, School of Medicine, Advanced Research Center.

Previously, she was a Research Assistant Professor in the School of Biological & Health Systems Engineering, Fulton School of Engineering, Arizona State University, and an Instructional and Research Assistant Professor, the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston.

Colin J.H. Brenan is a serial life sciences entrepreneur and senior executive with over 30 years of experience building high-growth, early-stage life science companies based on in-licensed university research. Dr. Brenan is the CEO of Kibur Medical Inc. (www.kiburmed.com), an early-stage company commercializing a novel precision medicine cancer diagnostic, and Managing Director of CB Bioventures LLC, an advisory for early-stage life science companies. Previously, he was the Founder/CEO and Director of the single-cell instrumentation company 1CellBio Inc. (www.1cell-bio.com); formerly, Founder/Chief Commercial Officer and Director of the antibody-drug developer HiFiBiO Ltd (www.hifibio.com); and, a Managing Partner of the seed stage investment fund 7Pines Holding BV. Before 7Pines, he was Managing Director of the Monsanto-Atlas Seed Fund Alliance at Atlas Venture (Cambridge, USA), where he identified and invested in seed and early-stage life science companies. Before Atlas, Dr. Brenan was Director of Strategic Relationships for the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) — a Mass General-Brigham innovation center (Boston, MA).

Before joining CIMIT, Dr. Brenan was the Founder, Chief Technology Officer, SVP, Business Development, and a Director of BioTrove Inc. (Woburn, USA), a life science nanofluidic tools company spun out from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and acquired by Life Technologies Inc. (LIFE: NASDAQ); and a Founder of Biocius Inc., a drug discovery instrument and service provider spun-out from BioTrove and acquired by Agilent Inc. (A: NYSE).

Dr. Brenan is the inventor of 52 patents and numerous patent applications and published +50 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and reports in bio-microsystems, confocal microscopy, spectroscopic imaging, drug discovery, and microsurgical robotics. He has over a decade of experience in consulting for the US National Institutes of Health and is a reviewer for IEEE, IEE, and AIP journals.

Dr. Brenan is an IEEE Senior Member, is the Healthcare Lead for the IEEE Entrepreneurship Committee, and was formerly IEEE-EMBS VP of Technical Activities and Editor-in-Chief of IEEE PULSE Magazine. He received his B.Sc. (Honors Physics), M. Eng. (Electrical), and Ph.D. (Biomedical Engineering) from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) and completed post-doctoral training at MIT (Cambridge, USA).

Dr. Rosa H. M. Chan is currently an Associate Professor and Associate Head (Research and Graduate Programmes) in the Department of Electrical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include computational neuroscience, neural prosthesis, and human-computer interaction. She received a B. Eng. (1st Hon.) degree in Automation and Computer-Aided Engineering from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2003. She was later awarded the Croucher Scholarship and Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fellowship for Overseas Studies in 2004. She received her Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2011 from the University of Southern California, where she also earned her M. S. degrees in Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Aerospace Engineering. She was the co-recipient of the Outstanding Paper Award of IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering in 2013 for their research breakthroughs in mathematical modeling for cognitive prosthesis. She was also the co-recipient of the Gold Medal in Inventions Geneva Evaluation Days (IGED), a virtual edition of the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva, in 2021 for a youth sports education and management SaaS platform based on AIoT. Dr. Chan is VP-Elect (Finance) of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS). She was the Chair of the Hong Kong-Macau Joint Chapter of IEEE EMBS in 2014 and was elected to the IEEE EMBS Administrative Committee (AdCom) as Asia Pacific Representative (2018-2022). She is an editorial board member of the Journal of Neural Engineering and an area editor (neural signal processing and imaging) of Encyclopedia Brain (IEEE-Wiley).

Prof. Dimitrios I. Fotiadis received a Diploma in chemical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece, and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and materials science from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He is currently a Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece, where he is also the Director of the Unit of Medical Technology and Intelligent Information Systems and is an Affiliated Member of the Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, Biomedical Research Institute. He was a Visiting Researcher at the RWTH, Aachen, Germany, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston. He has coordinated and participated in more than 250 R&D funded projects (in FP6, FP7, H2020, and national Projects), being the coordinator (e.g., INSILC, TAXINOMISIS, HOLOBALANCE, CARDIOCARE, DECODE, etc.) and Technical coordinator (e.g., SMARTOOL, KARDIATOOL, TO_AITION, etc.). He is the author or co-author of more than 350 papers in scientific journals, 500 papers in peer-reviewed conference proceedings, and more than 50 book chapters. He is also the author/editor of 30 books. His work has received more than 23,000 citations (h-index=71). He is an IEEE EMBS Fellow, EAMBES Fellow, a Fellow of IAMBE, a Fellow of AIAA, a member of the IEEE Technical Committee of Biomedical Health Informatics, Editor in Chief of the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, a Member of the Editorial Board in IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering, Associate Editor for IEEE Open Journal in Engineering in Biology and Medicine and Computers in Biology and Medicine. His research interests include multiscale human tissues and organs modeling, intelligent wearable/implantable devices for automated diagnosis, processing of big medical data, machine learning, sensor informatics, image informatics, and bioinformatics. He received many scientific awards, including one from the Academy of Athens. He is the co-founder of PD Neurotechnology Ltd, UK.

Michael Friebe is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering Innovation at the AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland. He is an inventor of over 80 patents and has authored over 200 papers. He is a Board Member of four medical technology start-up companies and an investment partner of a MedTech fund. From 2016 to 2018, he was an IEEE EMBS Distinguished Lecturer on Innovation Generation and MedTech Entrepreneurship.

He received his B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering, his M.Sc. degree in technology management from Golden Gate University, San Francisco, and his Ph.D. degree in Medical Physics in Germany. After his B.Sc. degree, he spent five years in San Francisco as a Research and Design Engineer with an MRI and ultrasound device manufacturer. He has significant expertise in diagnostic imaging and image-guided therapies as a Founder/Innovator/CEO/Investor and a Scientist. 

He is also a Research Fellow with the Technical University of Munich, Munich; an Adjunct Professor with the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane; and a professor of image-guided therapies with Otto von Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany.

Prof. Dr. Natalie Mrachacz-Kersting member of IEEE, received her Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering from Aalborg University, in 2005, and currently holds the Chair for Neuroscience and Neuroscience in Sport at the Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg. She is the Practitioner Representative for the IEEE Engineering Medicine and Biology Society, Chair of the IEEE WI(BM)E, and on the Initiative Steering Committee of the IEEE Brain. Since 2019, she has been serving on the International BCI Society Board, where she heads the fundraising committee. She has previously held positions at Aalborg University, Denmark, FH Dortmund, and the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Natalie does research in Medical Technology, Biomedical Engineering, and Neuroscience. She has authored over 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals, over 130 conference articles/abstracts, ten book chapters, and one book. She is working on several projects within the Brain-Computer-Interfaces (BCIs) involving patient populations such as those suffering from stroke or ALS. Dr. Mrachacz-Kersting received several awards, including the international BCI award in 2017.

Uwe Kersting is heading the Neuromechanics and Musculoskeletal Biomechanics research group and is the acting Head of the Institute of Biomechanics and Orthopaedics at the German Sport University Cologne. He completed his PhD at the same institution in 1996, linking tissue adaptation to mechanical loading in training and exercise. Following a post-doctoral fellowship in Germany, he worked in New Zealand and Denmark for many years, constantly bridging the gap between basic and applied research topics while adding neuromechanical perspectives and advanced modeling approaches to his research portfolio. Prof. Kersting focuses on the motor control and mechanics of acute and chronic ankle and knee injuries. He has authored and co-authored approximately 120 peer-reviewed journal publications and book chapters in movement science, biomechanics, and measurement technology. Dr. Kersting has supervised about 100 BSc, MSc, and PhD students in different countries and educations.

Dr. Nicolai Spicher is a research group leader at the University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany, where he has directed the Biosignal Processing Lab since 2022. He received a B.Sc. & M.Sc. degree in Computer Science and Ph.D. from University Duisburg/Essen, where he was a member of the Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging. He completed postdoctoral training at the Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics at TU Brauschweig and Hannover Medical School. Nicolai is the recipient of various awards, including the Johann Peter Süßmilch Medal of the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry, and Epidemiology.

Nicolai is the Young Professional Representative of IEEE EMBS AdCom and chairs the Young Professional Committee and the joint German/Austrian/Swiss EMBS chapter.

His research interests include signal processing and machine learning for cardiovascular and multimodal applications.

Dr. Ali Tinazli (CEO @ Lifespin) has a deep background in the science and business of biomedicine and healthcare and technology convergence between digital/consumer technologies and healthcare.

Tinazli received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from J.W. Goethe University in Germany and studied business at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Ali has done extensive work in the molecular biology of aging and nanobiotechnology and has authored about 20 publications.

After receiving his Ph.D., Ali was in Corporate Development at Applied Biosystems (now Thermo Fisher), conducting technology scouting and in-licensing. From 2008 to 2015, Dr. Tinazli built the biomedical consumables business at Sony DADC (part of SONY Corporation). As a member of the management, he has headed as VP & Head of Business Development for the Americas business based out of Cambridge, MA. From 2015 to 2019, Ali was leading Hewlett-Packard’s global healthcare strategy in Palo Alto (CA, USA), which resulted in an HP board approval to enter health diagnostics — after he joined point-of-care diagnostics start-up Fluxergy in Irvine (CA, USA) as CCO and brought the company’s first product under CE-IVD to the European and Middle Eastern market.

Ali brings entrepreneurial solid experience and hands-on knowledge of the biosciences start-up community and serves as a Board Member and Angel Investor in numerous start-ups ranging from cybersecurity to oncology.

Dr. May Dongmei Wang is Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Fellow and full professor of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computational Science and Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) and Emory University (EU) in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She received a BEng from Tsinghua University China and an MS/PhD from GT. She is Director of Biomedical Big Data Initiative, Georgia Distinguished Cancer Scholar, Petit Institute Faculty Fellow, Kavli Fellow, AIMBE Fellow, IAMBE Fellow, IEEE Fellow, and Board of Directors of American Board of AI in Medicine. Dr. Wang works in Biomedical Big Data and AI-Driven Biomedical Health Informatics and Intelligent Reality (IR) for predictive, personalized, and precision health (pHealth). She published over 300 articles in referred journals and conference proceedings with over 16,000 Google Scholar citations, and has delivered more than 320 invited and keynote lectures.

Dr. Wang is the Senior Editor for IEEE Journal of Biomedical & Health Informatics, an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions for BME and IEEE Reviews for BME, a panelist for NIH CDMA (Clinical Data Management and Analysis) Study Section, NSF Smart and Connect Health, and Brain Canada. Dr. Wang chaired IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) BHI-Technical Community chair, and ACM Special Interest Group in Bioinformatics (SIGBio). She was 2014-2015 IEEE-EMBS Distinguished Lecturer, and an Emerging Area Editor for Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. She is VP of IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (IEEE-EMBS), a member of IEEE Future Directions Committee and The International Academy of Med. and Bio. Eng. (IAMBE) Executive Committee.

Dr. Wang is a recipient of GT Outstanding Faculty Mentor for Undergrad Research Award, and EU MilliPub Award (for a high-impact paper that is cited over 1,000 times. She is 2023 ELATES (Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering and Science) Fellow, 2022 GT President LeadingWomen, 2021 GT Provost Emerging Leaders, and 2018-2021 GT Carol Ann and David Flanagan Distinguished Faculty Fellow. She was 2015-2017 GT Biomedical Informatics Program Co-Director in Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute (ACTSI), Director of Bioinformatics and Biocomputing Core in NIH/NCI-sponsored U54 CCNE, and Co-Director of GT Center of Bio-Imaging Mass Spectrometry. Her research has been supported by NIH, NSF, CDC, VA, Georgia Research Alliance, Georgia Cancer Coalition, Shriners’ Children, Children’s Health Care of Atlanta, Enduring Heart Foundation, Coulter Foundation, Imlay Foundation, Carol Ann and David Flanagan Foundation, Microsoft Research, HP, UCB, and Amazon.