Invited Speakers

Professor Liselotte Højgaard, MD, DMSc, Liselotte Højgaard is a clinician scientist and specialist in Clinical Physiology & Nuclear Medicine. She was Head of Department of Rigshospitalet’s Department of Clinical Physiology, Nuclear Medicine & PET from 2000 to 2023, a leading clinical PET center in oncology. She is Professor at the University of Copenhagen in medical technology and Adjunct Professor at DTU. Højgaard is member of the Scientific Council of ERC and was previously President of EMRC The European Medical Research Councils, and Chair of the Danish National Research Foundation. She is member of the Board of Directors of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, The Bosch Foundation in Germany, and holds a Knighthood in Denmark and is Chevalier de la légion d’honneur in France. Her research with more than 250 peer review publications focuses on pathophysiology, nuclear medicine, and AI, and she has supervised more than 50 masters and Ph.D. students, the majority from bioengineering. She was co-founder of the cross disciplinary education as bioengineer in medicine and technology established in 2003 between DTU, The Technical University of Denmark, University of Copenhagen and Rigshospitalet.

Dario Farina is Full Professor and Chair in Neurorehabilitation Engineering at the Department of Bioengineering of Imperial College London, UK. At Imperial College, he is also Director of the Network of Excellence in Rehabilitation Technologies, and Director of the Imperial-Meta Wearable Neural Interfaces Research Centre. He has previously been Full Professor at Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark, (until 2010) and at the University Medical Center Göttingen, Georg-August University, Germany, where he founded and directed the Department of Neurorehabilitation Systems (2010-2016). Among other awards, he holds a Honorary Doctorate degree in Medicine from Aalborg University, Denmark, and has been the recipient of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Early Career Achievement Award, the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, the IEEE EMBS Technical Achievement Award. His research focuses on biomedical signal processing, neurorehabilitation technology, and neural control of movement. Professor Farina has been the President of the International Society of Electrophysiology and Kinesiology (ISEK) (2012-2014) and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the official Journal of this Society, the Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, and an Editor for many other international Journals, including Science Advances and IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. Professor Farina has been elected Fellow IEEE, AIMBE, ISEK, EAMBES, AAIA, Sigma Xi.

Dr. Ferrara is Professor of Radiology and Division Chief of the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford University. She previously served as the founding chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis. Dr. Ferrara is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Biomedical Engineering Society, Acoustical Society of America, World Molecular Imaging Society and American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. Her publications include more than 320 manuscripts at the intersection of molecular imaging and biology. Her laboratory has received awards that include the IEEE UFFC Achievement Award, the IEEE Ultrasonics Rayleigh Award, the IEEE Biomedical Engineering Award, the WMIC Gold Medal, the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research, and the Judith Poole Award from the Association of Women in Science. Her contributions include work in ultrasound imaging and therapy and the use of positron emission tomography in therapeutic protocols.

Professor Dame Molly Stevens DBE FRS FREng is the John Black Professor of Bionanoscience at the University of Oxford and a part-time professor at Imperial College London and the Karolinska Institute. Molly’s multidisciplinary research balances the investigation of fundamental science with the development of technology to address some of the major healthcare challenges. She is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of several companies in the diagnostics, advanced therapeutics, and regenerative medicine fields. Her work has been instrumental in elucidating bio-material interfaces. She has created a broad portfolio of designer biomaterials for applications in disease diagnostics and regenerative medicine. Her substantial body of work influences research groups around the world and she has been multiple times listed as Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher in Cross-Field research. Molly holds numerous leadership positions, Deputy Director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery, Deputy Director of the UK Quantum Biomedical Sensing Research Hub, and Scientist Trustee of the National Gallery. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK), a Foreign Member of the National Academy of Engineering (USA), an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she was recognised with the 2023 Novo Nordisk Prize and the 2024 Royal Society Armourers and Brasiers Company Prize, amongst many other accolades.

Jørgen Arendt Jensen (M’93–SM’02–F’12) received the Master of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1985 and the Ph.D. degree in 1989, both from the Technical University of Denmark. He received the Dr.Techn. degree from the university in 1996. He is since 1993 full Professor of Biomedical Signal Processing with the Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark. He has been head of the Center for Fast Ultrasound Imaging since its inauguration in 1998. Fifty-five PhD students have graduate from CFU. He has published more than 550 journal and conference papers on signal processing and medical ultrasound and the book Estimation of Blood Velocities Using Ultrasound (Cambridge Univ. Press), 1996. He is also the developer and maintainer of the Field II simulation program. He has been a visiting scientist at Duke University, Stanford University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is head of the Ultrasound and Biomechanics Section from 2020. In 2003, he was one of the founders of the biomedical engineering program in Medicine and Technology, which is a joint degree program between the Technical University of Denmark and the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen. The degree is one of the most sought-after engineering degrees in Denmark. He was chairman of the study board from 2003 to 2010 and Adjunct Professor with the University of Copenhagen from 2005 to 2010. He has given a number of short courses on simulation, synthetic aperture imaging, and flow estimation at international scientific conferences and teaches biomedical signal processing and medical imaging at the Technical University of Denmark. His research is centered around simulation of ultrasound imaging, synthetic aperture imaging, vector blood flow estimation, construction of ultrasound research systems, fast 3-D super resolution imaging, and their clinical translation. Dr. Jensen has given more than 70 invited talks at international meetings and received several awards for his research, most recently the Grand Solutions Prize from the Danish Minister of Science, the order of Dannebrog by her Majesty the Queen of Denmark, the Rayleigh award from the IEEE UFFC, and the prestigious Synergy grant from the European Research Council ERC.

Anja Boisen is head of section and professor at department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark. Also, she is heading a DNRF and Villum Centre of Excellence named ‘IDUN – Intelligent Drug Delivery and Sensing Using Microcontainers and Nanomechanics’. Her research group focuses on the development and application of nano-sensors, energy harvesting in the body and ingestible devices for sensing, sampling and delivery. Anja is cofounder of companies Cantion, Silmeco BluSense Diagnostics and LightNovo. She is, among others, member of the board of the Leo Foundation, the board of Villum Foundation, the Danish Academy of the Technical Sciences, and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences. In 2008 she was awarded the largest research prize in Denmark, the Villum Kann Rasmussen award and in 2012 she was awarded the EliteForsk Award from the Danish ministry of Research, Innovation and Higher Education. In 2013 she received the ‘Sapere Aude – top researcher award’ from the Danish Council for Independent Research. Recently, in 2020 she was awarded the Order of Dannebrog by her Majesty the Queen of Denmark. In 2021 she was elected fellow of the electrochemical society (ECS) and became MNE 2021 fellow at the annual international conference on Micro and Nano Engineering (MNE). In 2022 she received the ECS outstanding Achievement Award. She has received two ERC advanced grants (2013 & 2022) and three ERC POC grants.

Massimo De Vittorio is Full Professor at the Technical University of Denmark. He is also principal investigator at the Center for Biomolecular Nanotechnologies of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Lecce – Italy), where he has served as Center Director for the past ten years. In his career, he has developed novel micro and nano technologies applied to ICT, energy, and life science and he has designed and coordinated micro and nanofabrication facilities with full prototyping and small/medium scale production capabilities. He is currently focusing his research on nanomachined implantable probes for manipulating and recording brain activity and on piezoelectric transducers applied to wearable and skin sensors and ingestible sensors for monitoring and controlling pathophysiological signals and symptoms in real-time. He is co-author of about 460 manuscripts in international journals, 14 patents, 10 book chapters, and several invited/keynote talks at international conferences. He has served on several boards and committees, and for his activity, he has received recognition and awards. He is the recipient of the 2023 Novo Nordisk Foundation Research Laureate Award and of the 2024 Fellow Award of the International Micro and Nano Engineering Society (iMNEs).

Professor Adil Mardinoglu works as a Professor of Systems Biology at the Centre for Host-Microbiome Interactions at King’s College London, UK, and Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab) at KTH-Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. At the helm of a 20-strong research team, Professor Mardinoglu spearheads the development of novel treatment strategies for metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as certain cancers, blending multiomics, systems biology, AI and experimental biology with drug development. A key contributor to the Swedish Human Protein Atlas program, Professor Mardinoglu has aided in the construction of a comprehensive human tissue, subcellular, and pathology atlas, and he has been instrumental in developing the cell atlas within the international Human Cell Atlas initiative. His scholarly output includes around more than 250 research and review articles published in journals such as Science, Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Cell Metabolism, Nature Metabolism, Nature Communications, PNAS, Cell Reports, Molecular Systems Biology, and EbioMedicine. Furthermore, as a co-founder of SZA Longevity, BASH Biotech, ScandiBio Therapeutics, ScandiEdge Therapeutics, and Trustlife Therapeutics, he has made substantial entrepreneurial contributions to the biotech sector.

Abdelsalam Ali Helal (aka: Sumi Helal) is a Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the University of Bologna, Italy. Prior to joining the University of Bologna, he spent 26 years as associate and then full processor in the Computer & Information Science and Engineering Department at the University of Florida, USA. At University of Florida, he directed the Mobile and Pervasive Computing Laboratory, co-founded and directed the Gator Tech Smart House –a real-world deployment project that aimed at identifying key barriers and opportunities to make the Smart Home concept a common place (creating the “Smart Home in a Box” concept). His active areas of research focus on architectural and programmability aspects of the Internet of Things (IoT), service-oriented IoT architectures, IoT edge intelligence, and pervasive/ubiquitous systems and their human-centric applications, especially in the Digital Health area. Helal is also a technologist at heart who founded several successful ventures in the areas of IoT and Digital Health. His patents that came out of his research were licensed by the top multinational tech industry including Google, Apple, Samsung, Bosch, Siemens, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T among others. Helal is a Fellow of the ACM, IEEE, AAAS, AAIA, IET, and a member of Academia Europaea. He can be contacted at: helal@acm.org

Levi J. Hargrove, PhD, P.Eng, earned his MScE and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick in 2005 and 2008, respectively. He is currently the Director and Scientific Chair of the Center for Bionic Medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and an Associate Professor in the Departments of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. As a leading figure in the prosthetics industry, Dr. Hargrove oversees a research portfolio valued at approximately $25M USD, which encompasses cutting-edge projects aimed at developing clinically-realizable myoelectric control systems for individuals with limb loss. With over 200 peer-reviewed articles published in a variety of high-impact journals, Dr. Hargrove is widely regarded as a respected thought leader in the field. Dr. Hargrove’s key projects include developing advanced and adaptive control systems for bionic legs, improving the control of robotic hand prostheses, and evaluating intramuscular EMG signals collected using biocompatible implants. In 2012, he co-founded Coapt, a company that has successfully translated machine-learning-based prosthetic limb controllers. The company has sold over a thousand systems to amputees worldwide, helping them regain their independence and improve their quality of life.

Jakob E. Bardram, MSc, PhD in computer science, is a professor at the Department of Health Technology at the Technical University of Denmark and the head of the Digital Health research section. His main research areas are software architecture, mobile & ubiquitous computing, and human-computer interaction. His research focuses on applications within healthcare, ranging from interactive displays for clinical logistics in hospitals to digital phenotyping in psychiatry, neurology, cardiology, and diabetes. He is the principal software architect of the Copenhagen Research Platform (CARP) for digital phenotyping and the CARP Mobile Sensing framework for mobile and wearable sensing. He is also an active entrepreneur and is the co-founder of Cetrea and Monsenso, where he has served as a board member and in different C-level roles, including CEO and CTO. Read more about CARP at carp.dk and about Jakob on his home page, www.bardram.net.

Professor, Consultant Ismail Gögenur Ismail Gögenur is the founder and leader of Center for Surgical Science, a multidisciplinary research unit consisting of molecular biologists, data scientists, bioinformaticians and clinical researchers involved in translational research, clinical research (including multi-center international trials) and Big Data methodologies. He has more than 500 scientific articles published in national and interna-tional peer-reviewed medical journals. His overarching research focus is within the development and implementation of new surgical treatments and on surgical pathophysiology.

I studied chemistry at Vienna University where I obtained my PhD in 2009. During my PhD I studied biology in addition before I went on to do a postdoc at Stanford University and ETH Zurich. In 2014 I started my own group at Groningen University at the University Medical Center Groningen. Her I am leading a research group which is developing nanoscale MRI techniques which allow nanoscale sensing in living cells. In the past years I have been awarded several grants and awards including a European ERC starting grant and its Dutch equivalent the VIDI