Plenary / Keynote Speakers

Dr. Meltem Izzetoglu is an Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Villanova University, Villanova, PA. She is also affiliated with The Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY. Dr. Izzetoglu has background in both electrical and biomedical engineering fields coupled with experience and interest in the design, development, and evaluation of portable and wearable bio-optical devices, signal conditioning algorithms, data analytics, and metrics for applications ranging from medical to basic science research. She has been involved in the translation of two medical devices from lab to field and clinical use. Some of her current projects include investigation of cognitive control of mobility in young and aging populations, assessment and enhancement of cognitive performance, detection and monitoring of cerebral hemorrhage and edema development, physical and digital optical head model designs, detection of neurological and neurodegenerative diseases and mental disorders, and monitoring of local tissue oximetry. Dr. Izzetoglu is a member of IEEE and fNIRS Society. She has authored numerous publications and led several federally and privately funded projects. She actively teaches courses and advises student research projects on bioinstrumentation and biomedical signal processing topics in graduate and undergraduate levels.

Purang Abolmaesumi received his BSc (1995) and MSc (1997) from Sharif University of Technology, Iran, and his PhD (2002) from UBC, all in Electrical Engineering. From 2002 to 2009, he was a faculty member with the School of Computing, Queen’s University. He then joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UBC, where he is a Professor, with Associate Memberships to Department of Urologic Sciences and School of Biomedical Engineering.

Dr. Abolmaesumi’s internationally recognized research program investigates advanced topics in medical imaging, machine learning on data at scale, and image-guided diagnosis and interventions.

Dr. Abolmaesumi is a Distinguished University Scholar, and the recipient of the Killam Faculty Research Prize, the Killam Award for Excellence in Mentoring and the Killam Faculty Research Fellowship at UBC. He currently serves as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging and has served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE TBME between 2008 and 2012. He is a Board Member of the International Society for Computer Aided Surgery, and has served on the Program Committees of the Medical Image Computing and Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) Medical Imaging, and the International Conference on Information Processing in Computer-Assisted Interventions (IPCAI). Dr. Abolmaesumi served as the General Chair of IPCAI 2014 and 2015, and has served as Program Chair of IPCAI 2012 in Pisa and Workshop and Tutorial Chair of MICCAI 2011 and 2015. He also served as the Program Chair for MICCAI 2020, and local Chair for MICCAI 2023. Dr. Abolmaesumi is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, a Fellow of MICCAI, and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

Luke P. Lee is a Professor at Harvard Medical School. He received his BA in Biophysics and Ph.D. in Applied Physics and Bioengineering from UC Berkeley. He joined the faculty at UC Berkeley in 1999 after more than a decade of industry experience. He became the Arnold and Barbara Silverman Distinguished Professor and the Lester John and Lynne Dewar Lloyd Distinguished Professor at Berkeley. He also served as the Chair Professor in Systems Nanobiology at ETH Zürich. He founded the Biomedical Institute for Global Healthcare Research & Technology (BIGHEART). He served as Associate President for International Research and Innovation and Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor at the National University of Singapore. He also founded the Institute for Quantum Biophysics at Sungkyunkwan University, Korea. He has authored over 350 research articles, contributed to four book chapters, and holds 60 international patents. He mentored over 100 undergraduate students, 31 Ph.D. candidates, and 37 post-doctoral fellows, producing 35 faculty members at different universities. He has been honored as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He has also received various awards, such as the IEEE William J. Morlock Award, NSF Career Award, Fulbright Scholar Award, and the HoAm Prize.

Yu (Brandon) Xia is a Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at McGill University, where he holds the Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Computational and Systems Biology.  He graduated from Peking University with B.S. in Chemistry (major) and Computer Science (minor).  He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University, specializing in computational biology with Michael Levitt.  After postdoctoral research in bioinformatics with Mark Gerstein at Yale University, he became an Assistant Professor of Bioinformatics and Chemistry at Boston University, with a secondary appointment in Biomedical Engineering.  He joined McGill University in 2013 as Associate Professor and was subsequently promoted to Professor.  His research uses computation and data science to probe design principles of proteins and protein networks in health and disease.

Dr. Michael Khoo is the Dean’s Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Pediatrics at the University of Southern California. He received his undergraduate and doctoral training from Imperial College (University of London) and Harvard University, respectively. He was Department Chair of Biomedical Engineering and Co-Director of Education and Outreach in the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center on Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems from 2003 to 2010. He served as a member of EMBS AdCom, as Vice-President for Conferences, and as Chair of the 2012 EMBS International Conference. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, Biomedical Engineering Society, the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, and the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering. He was the recipient of a NIH Research Career Development Award and an American Lung Association Career Development Award. He is currently the Director of “SleepHuB”, a USC collaboratory that seeks to address important medical and societally relevant problems in sleep health with research approaches that deploy local resources, novel ideas and cutting-edge technological tools. His research focuses on developing dynamic computational models of the mechanisms underlying abnormal autonomic, metabolic and sleep regulation in chronic diseases, such as sleep-disordered breathing, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and sickle cell disease.

Yiwen Wang received B.S. and M.S. degrees from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), Hefei, Anhui, China respectively. She received a Ph.D. degree from University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA. She joined as an associate professor at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.  She is now an associate professor with substantiation at the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Her research interests are in neural decoding of brain-machine interfaces, adaptive signal processing, computational neuroscience, and neuromorphic engineering. She served as the Chair of the IEEE EMBS Neural Engineering Tech Committee, the Chair of the IEEE BRAIN publication subcommittee, and the board member of Brain Computer Interfaces Society. She was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Brain Newsletter. She also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Neural Engineering, an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, and was the associate editor of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (Brain-Computer Interfaces),  associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Engineering. She was recognized as IEEE EMBS distinguished lecturer in 2022, and received IEEE EMBS Distinguished Service award in 2023. She holds two US patents and has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications.

David E. Albert, MD is a physician, inventor and serial entrepreneur who has developed medical technologies and products over the last 40 years, turning a number of those innovations into tech startups. He is a founder and Chief Medical Officer of AliveCor. His previous startups include Corazonix Corp (sold to Arrhythmia Research Technology) and Data Critical (sold to GE). He invented the AliveCor® KardiaMobile™ in 2010 and it immediately became a global sensation via a four-minute YouTube Video in January 2011. Dr. Albert has 81 issued US patents. He has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific abstracts and publications principally in the Cardiology literature. Dr. Albert has lectured at universities and leading medical centers all over the world as well as being a regular faculty member at the major Cardiology Scientific Meetings (AHA, ACC, HRS, TCT). Dr. Albert graduated with Honors from Harvard College and from Duke University Medical School. Dr. Albert currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife. They have four children and two granddaughters.

Prof. Max Ortiz Catalán, Ph.D., is the Head of Neural Prosthetic Research at the Bionics Institute and Honorary Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne, both in Melbourne, Australia. He has created several biomedical innovations, including the first bionic limb connected to the user’s skeleton, nerves, and muscles, and novel treatments for neuropathic pain due to sensorimotor impairments that are currently used worldwide. He has authored 100+ scientific publications and has been keynote and guest speaker in 100+ international conferences and universities worldwide. Several documentaries and 100+ popular science articles in over a dozen languages have featured his work. He has received several honors for his work, notably the “Swedish Embedded Award” by the Swedish Electronic Association in 2018, the “Brian & Joyce Blatchford Award” by ISPO in 2017, the “Delsys Prize” by Delsys in 2016, and the “European Youth Award” by the European Council in 2014.

Prof. Ortiz Catalán research includes bioelectric signals acquisition electronics (analog and digital); bioelectric signal processing and machine learning algorithms for decoding motor volition and control; neuromuscular interfaces; neurostimulation for sensory feedback; bone-anchored prostheses and osseointegration; and virtual and augmented reality for neuromuscular rehabilitation and the treatment of phantom limb pain.

Dr. Delphine Dean is the Ron and Jane Lindsay Family Innovation Professor and Chair of Bioengineering at Clemson University. Prior to joining Clemson in 2005, Dr. Dean earned her S.B., M.Eng., and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. She is focused on developing accessible healthcare solutions for underserved populations. Her research lab leads studies covering a wide range of areas from cardiovascular cell biomechanics, radiation biology, and medical device design. For over a decade, Dr. Dean has designing innovative medical devices tailored to low-resource environments. Her initiatives range from a cervical collar crafted from African grasses to a minimally invasive marker for breast cancer surgery patients. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Dean was part of a South Carolina wide initiative to create affordable and accessible saliva-based testing. She established the Research and Education in Disease Diagnostics and Intervention (REDDI) clinical diagnostic lab at Clemson, which conducted over 1.1 million COVID-19 tests for the university and the Upstate South Carolina community. The lab continues to expand its reach, now facilitating accessible clinical testing and educational opportunities for students.

Laura Waller is the Charles A. Desoer Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley. She received B.S., M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004, 2005 and 2010. After that, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer of Physics at Princeton University from 2010-2012 before joining UC Berkeley. She is a Packard Fellow for Science & Engineering, Moore Foundation Data-driven Investigator, OSA Fellow, and Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. She has received the Carol D. Soc Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Award, OSA Adolph Lomb Medal, NSF CAREER Award and the SPIE Early Career Achievement Award.

Michelle L. Oyen is the inaugural Director of the new Center for Women’s Health Engineering, based in the McKelvey School of Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis. Michelle has degrees in Materials Science and Engineering (BS), Engineering Mechanics (MS), and a PhD in Biophysical Sciences. She has worked on many problems in tissue biomechanics and biomimetic materials; she has researched engineering approaches to pregnancy and women’s health for over twenty years.  Her focus is on maternal and fetal health, and in methods to prevent, diagnose, and intervene in preterm birth. Current research projects include multi-scale modeling of placenta function, microstructural fracture models for amniotic sac rupture, and physical properties of the healthy and pathological uterus.