Speakers

Dr. Ropella is currently a Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering at Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI. Dr. Ropella’s research interests are in physiologic signal processing and time series analysis, electrophysiology, cardiac arrhythmias, functional magnetic resonance imaging and biocomputing. She has established collaborative research programs with several investigators at the Medical College of Wisconsin as well as with local industry. She also directs the Functional Imaging Program, a joint doctoral degree program offered by Marquette University and the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Dr. Ropella received the 2007 US Professor of the Year award for the state of Wisconsin, and she is a past recipient of the Marquette University Robert and Mary Gettel Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence. Dr. Ropella is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and a senior member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, and a member of the Biomedical Engineering Society. She is also a member of the American Society for Engineering Education, the Human Brain Mapping Society, Sigma Xi and Tau Beta Pi.

Dr. Ropella received her B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Marquette University and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, both in Biomedical Engineering, from Northwestern University.

Dr. Butson received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland, M.S. in Electrical Engineering from George Washington University and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Utah. He completed post-doctoral training at the Cleveland Clinic and is now a faculty member at the Medical College of Wisconsin in the Departments of Neurology & Neurosurgery, and Marquette University in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. He is an active member of the Society for Neuroscience (SFN), the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBS). He is currently leading a research laboratory which focuses on neuromodulation, specifically therapeutic and diagnostic brain stimulation.

Jens Rittscher joined the Visualization and Computer Vision Laboratory at GE Global Research in Niskayuna in 2001. He received a Diploma in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University in Bonn, Germany in 1997, and completed is DPhil under the supervision of Andrew Blake (FRS) at the University of Oxford in 2001. His research interests include the analysis of visual motion, automatic video annotation, and model based image segmentation techniques. More recently he focused his research efforts in the area of biomedical imaging.  In 2008 he published a volume with the tile Microscopic Image Analysis for Life Science Applications together with Raghu Machiraju and Stephen Wong. Currently he also has an adjunct professorship at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY

John was a postdoctoral scholar in Pediatric Cardiology at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and Stanford University for 2.5 years after earning his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering. He now directs the laboratory for translational, experimental and computational cardiovascular research at Marquette University. Research in the lab includes: (1) quantifying hemodynamic and physiologic alterations as indices of morbidity after surgical or transcatheter treatments for congenital diseases; (2) characterizing interactions between altered hemodynamics associated with stent implantation and the development of neointimal hyperplasia; (3) immersive virtual reality systems for visualization of computational fluid dynamics results and science, technology, math and engineering education; (4) the development and implementation of novel engineering devices and interventions for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, particularly in children; (5) developing tools for predictive surgical or interventional treatment planning. Together with his colleagues, mentors and students, John has published over 20 peer-reviewed journal articles.

Dr. Karim Abdel-Malek is Director of the US Army Virtual Soldier Research (VSR) program, professor of biomedical and mechanical engineering at The University of Iowa, and founder of Santos Human Inc. Dr. Abdel-Malek leads a team of 150 researchers at The University of Iowa with a focus on modeling and simulation. He is the creator of Santos™, a human simulation environment used by the US military and industries such as Ford and Caterpillar to test human performance and human systems integration. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in robotics. He has published over 170 technical papers in the field. Dr. Abdel-Malek serves on several international committees and as board member of three private companies. He is the founder of Cyber-Anatomy Corporation, a simulation and visualization company focused on medical education technologies, whose products are distributed through Elsevier Global Medicine Group.