BME - Key Persons
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- Research Grants Manager ( CS, EMSE, MAE Post - Award )
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- Department Operations Lead
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- School Research Administrator
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- Communications & Marketing Assistant
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- Research Grants Manager ( BME, CEE, ECE Post - Award )
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- Assistant Director for Co - Curicular Engagement
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- Data Management Coordinator
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- Data Information Specialist
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- Associate Professor of Engineering Management
Ekundayo Shittu is an associate professor of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering and Interim Department Chair. Dr. Shittu recieved his Ph.D. Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, University of Massachusetts Amherst. He conducts basic and applied research that take a systems engineering approach to aid decision making under uncertainty on investments into energy technology portfolios and the economics of climate change response policies.
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- Interim Director, Innovation Center
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- School Research Administrator
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- Member of the BME Advisory Board
- Chief Operating Officer / Intrinsic Therapeutics, Inc.
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- Senior Graduate Professional Advisor
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- Associate
- Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies
- Professor
Jason Zara is the school's associate dean for undergraduate studies and a professor of biomedical engineering in the Department of Biomedical Engineering . Dr. Zara received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University. He has been on the faculty of the School of Engineering and Applied Science since 2002, and previously served as the associate chair for academic affairs for the Biomedical Engineering Department and represented SEAS in the GW faculty senate from 2017-2021 serving as the chair and co-chair for the faculty senate committee on educational policy and technology. He has been active in undergraduate education, advising, and curriculum development and has won numerous teaching award including GW's Trachtenberg Prize for Teaching Excellence in 2020. Dr. Zara's research interests are in the development of novel imaging instrumentation and image analysis algorithms to improve the detection and evaluation of epithelial cancers, epilepsy, and other human diseases.
John Lach is the dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Dr. Lach joined SEAS from the University of Virginia, where he served most recently as the director of cross-cutting initiatives at the university's School of Engineering and Applied Science and as a professor of electrical and computer engineering in the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He previously served as the chair of the department. Throughout his career, Dr. Lach has worked extensively with departments, schools, and initiatives to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration that supports strategic priorities. As a researcher, he focuses on wireless technologies in health. Dr. Lach received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from UCLA. See Dean Lach's full profile. Email Dean Lach.
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- Senior Professional Academic Advisor
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- Supervisor for Pre - Award
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- Director of Constituent Engagement and Annual Giving
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- Assistant VP, Development and Constituent Engagement
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- Member of the BME Advisory Board
- Senior Field Clinical Engineer / Abbott
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- Member of the BME Advisory Board
- Dean / Opus College
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- Member of the BME Advisory Board
- Director, Division of Imaging, Diagnostics, and Software Reliability
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- SEAS Marketing and Communications Director
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- Associate Dean for Research
- Associate Dean for Research and a Professor
Lijie Grace Zhang is the school's associate dean for research and a professor of engineering and applied science in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Dr. Zhang received her Ph.D. from Brown University. She is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Her lab is focused on applying advanced 3D/4D bioprinting, nanotechnology, and stem cells for complex tissue regeneration and various disease treatments.
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- Senior Professional Academic Advisor
Majid Manzari is a professor of civil engineering and the chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Dr. Manzari received his Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of California, Davis. His research centers on experimental and computational geomechanics, earthquake-resistant infrastructure systems, and constitutive modeling of engineering materials. He has been a member of the SEAS faculty since 1994.
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- Manager, Research Programs, GW
Michael Plesniak is a professor of engineering and applied science and the chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Dr. Plesniak received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. He is a Fellow of ASME, AIAA, APS and AAAS. His research interests include: fluid dynamics, turbulence and complex flows, mixing phenomena, and biofluid dynamics-cardiovascular flows and human speech production. He has been a member of the SEAS faculty since 2008 and was formerly a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University and a program director at the National Science Foundation.
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- Member of the BME Advisory Board
- Professor Emeritus, Biomedical Engineering / Duke University
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- Department Operations Assistant / Department of Biomedical Engineering / Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
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- Professor and Department Chair of Computer Science
Rebecca Hwa is a professor and department chair of Computer Science. Her research sits at the intersection of natural language process, machine learning, and human computer interaction. Her work focuses on developing machine learning methods that reveal the hidden syntactic and semantic structures within languages. These methods have applications in diverse domains, including health, education, and the social sciences. Some of her recent projects include: modeling student behaviors in revising argumentative essays, identifying symbolisms in multimodal rhetorics, and recognizing group biases in social media.
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- Associate Dean for Graduate Studies
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- Career Services Ambassador
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- Special Assistant to the Dean
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- Member of the BME Advisory Board
- Department Chair, Professor / the University of Texas
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- Associate Director of Development
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- Member of the BME Advisory Board
- Vice President of Research and Business Development
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- Associate
- Chairman
- Professor and Chair
Vesna Zderic is the chair of Bio Medical Engineering and Associate Chair for Research and Graduate Affairs. Dr Zderic received her Ph.D, University of Washington. Her research objective has been to determine combinations of ultrasound parameters that can provide optimal delivery of different drugs into the eye, study mechanisms of ultrasound action, and determine long-term safety of this application.
The Department of Biomedical Engineering at The George Washington University offers unique and exciting opportunities for our students allowing them to take advantage of our location in the heart of the Nation's capital and near numerous federal agencies and research labs involved in biomedical and health-related research. The students also get a chance to get engaged in various cutting-edge research efforts that are happening within the Department and are funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, American Heart Association, private foundations, and industry. These research efforts include novel methods to analyze medical images and present additional information to physicians, new technologies to understand electrical conduction abnormalities in the heart to better respond to heart attacks and arrhythmias, new approaches to provide selective delivery of drugs, such as chemotherapy agents, to areas of interest in the body without damaging healthy tissues, and development of next-generation soft, lightweight, and bio-compatible recording and stimulation devices, among many other exciting projects.
The Department offers an ABET-accredited Bachelor of Science degree in biomedical engineering (BME) as well as Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in BME. Our students maintain an engaging community that provides numerous opportunities for career, entrepreneurship, and leadership skill development as well as community outreach and involvement within BME professional societies. Our students also participate in study abroad, internships, and undergraduate research experiences. Our department offers small classroom sizes, core faculty committed to teaching, and collaborative and never competitive student atmosphere where students can freely learn from a diverse group of peers and faculty. Further, our department is located right next to the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences and GW Hospital allowing for a great collaborative and cross-disciplinary teaching and research environment. Our overall welcoming and supportive environment is critical in achieving our goal of successfully training the next generation of biomedical engineers. Our students become well-rounded engineers aware of contemporary issues and challenges both as related to the biomedical field and society as a whole. They go on to make a difference in various important areas including basic research, device development, patent law, regulatory field, and medicine.
Our BME faculty is looking forward to talking with you to discuss your interests and the many exciting opportunities that the BME department offers. Please contact us at biomed@gwu.edu or at 202-994-3740.
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- Communications Associate, Outreach and Engagement
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- SEAS Director of Strategic Initiatives
Zoe Szajnfarber is the inaugural SEAS Director of Strategic Initiatives (DSI). In this role Professor Szajnfarber oversees the school's strategic initiatives, such as Trustworthy AI, and works with faculty leaders, Department Chairs, and the Dean's Office to support the conception, development, implementation, execution, and sunsetting of strategic initiatives. Dr. Szajnfarber received her Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research group seeks to understand the fundamental dynamics of innovation in the monopsony market that characterizes government space and defense activities, as a basis for decision making.