Message from the Department Head
On behalf of the Department of Bioengineering, welcome to our very first issue of the newsletter.
Bioengineering is the youngest department within the College of Engineering established in 2000, which serves as the focal point for applying engineering to life and medical sciences in both research and educational activities. Currently, we have 12 full-time faculty members in the department. Bioengineering faculty and students are engaged in a range of strategic interdisciplinary research areas, including cardiovascular engineering and artificial organs, cellular and molecular engineering, biomaterials and regenerative tissue engineering, neural interface and engineering, medical imaging and signal processing, drug delivery and nano-medicine, bioMEMS and nanotechnology, and medical device developments.
During 2012-2013, two new faculty members joined the Department of Bioengineering. Dr. Jian Yang from University of Texas Arlington, an associate professor who works in biomaterials and regenerative tissue engineering, established a new Transformative Biomaterials and Biotechnology Laboratory; Dr. Yong Wang from University of Connecticut, an associate professor who works in biomaterials and drug delivery, built a new Biomolecular and Biomimetic Engineering Laboratory. We are excited to welcome Dr. Nanyin Zhang from University of Massachusetts, an associate professor who works in functional magnetic resonance imaging and neural science, will join the department in the fall semester 2013. Our new faculty members have been recruited to the Department of Bioengineering enhancing the activities in biomedical research and education, providing intellectual leadership in the field of life sciences, and becoming involved in interdisciplinary and collaborative research with the Penn State Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Materials Research Institute, and Hershey Medical Center.
The Department of Bioengineering also administers the Intercollege Graduate Degree Program in Bioengineering in which students across the university can enroll. We have recently re-evaluated our graduate program requirements and are pleased to announce that we offer a more tailored program to the students and faculty members research interests. Although the department is relatively small compared with other traditional engineering departments, the undergraduate program in bioengineering has had significant growth and increasing interest each year since its inception.
The undergraduate major began with 40 students per year as the target enrollment when it started. In 2013, the department has already accepted 95 students into the major with a 3.3 cumulative GPA. We expect the major to continue to be over enrolled in the foreseeable future, making it a fast growing department within the college.
From our alumni, Dr. Ted Lamson, a Founder and Chief Technical Officer of NeoTract Inc; Dr. Jian Cao, a Senior Principal Scientist at Medtronic Inc; Dr. Timothy Baldwin, a Deputy Chief Program Director at NIH have respectively received the Penn State Outstanding Engineering Alumni awards in a recognition of their outstanding accomplishment and contributions to the biomedical engineering profession and Penn State bioengineering.
We hope you enjoy reading and learning about the many achievements of our faculty, students and alumni highlighted in this newsletter. We are impressed by what our colleagues and students have achieved and continue to do. One only needs to walk around the Bryce Jordan Center in April during the Engineering Senior Design Showcase to see just how talented our young bioengineers are. We can credit our faculty for instilling our students, as well as our students, with the passion and knowledge to create something that would benefit mankind in some way.
- Dr. Cheng Dong
Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering,
Head, Department of Bioengineering