Speakers
Conference Chair
Subrata Saha, PhD
SUNY Downstate Medical Center
Dr. Saha is presently the Director of Musculoskeletal Research and Research Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery & Rehabilitation Medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. Dr. Saha received a BS in Civil Engineering from Calcutta University in 1963, an MS in Engineering Mechanics in 1969 from Tennessee Technological University, and Engineering and PhD degrees in Applied Mechanics from Stanford University in 1972 and 1974, respectively. He has been a faculty member at Yale University, Louisiana State University Medical Center, Loma Linda University, Clemson University, and Alfred University.
He has received numerous research grants from federal agencies (NIH and NSF), foundations, and industry. Dr. Saha is the founder of the Southern Biomedical Engineering Conference Series. He also started the International Conference on Ethical Issues in Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Saha has published over 90 papers in journals, 35 book chapters and edited volumes, 347 papers in conference proceedings, and 84 abstracts. His research interests are bone mechanics, biomaterials, orthopedic and dental implants, drug delivery systems, rehabilitation engineering, and bioethics.
Dr. Saha has received many awards from professional societies, including Orthopedic Implant Award, Dr. C. P. Sharma Award, Researcher of the Year Award, C. William Hall Research Award in Biomedical Engineering, Award for Faculty Excellence, Research Career Development Award from NIH, and Engineering Achievement Award. He is a Fellow of The Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).
Dr. Saha is presently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Long-Term Effects of Medical Implants and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Medical Implants & Devices and was an Associate Editor of the Annals of Biomedical Engineering and Trends in Biomaterials and Artificial Organs. He has been a Member of the Editorial Boards of many journals, including Journal of Biomedical Materials Research; Medical Engineering and Physics; Journal of Applied Biomaterials; Medical Design and Material; Biomaterials, Artificial Cells, and Immobilization Biotechnology; Biomaterials, Medical Device and Artificial Organs; Journal of Bioengineering, Biotelemetry and Patient Monitoring; Journal of Basic & Applied Biomedicine and TM Journal.
Keynote Speakers
Charles N. Bertolami, DDS, DMedSc
New York University
Dr. Bertolami, a leader in the dental research, education, and clinical communities, is Herman Robert Fox Dean of the New York University (NYU) College of Dentistry, the Nation's Largest Dental School. His research and scholarly interest has focused on orofacial tissue repair, the biochemistry of hyaluronic acid, the use of sodium hyaluronate in treatment of temporomandibular disorders, and professional ethics. He has been the recipient of and principal investigator on many research grants, and the author of numerous articles in scholarly and research publications.
Dr. Bertolami is also the recipient of many awards and honors. He is the President-elect of the American Dental Education Association and is the former President of the American Association for Dental Research. He has served as a two-term member of the Overseers' Visiting Committee for the Faculty of Medicine and Dental Medicine at Harvard; was named as Distinguished Alumnus of the Ohio State University College of Dentistry (1996); Distinguished Alumnus, Harvard School of Dental Medicine (2000); served as the Percy T. Phillips Visiting Professor at Columbia University (2002); named the Vincent A. Barr Visiting Professor at the University of Kentucky; and received the Paul Goldhaber Award of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine (2003). He co-chaired (with Harvard Medical School Dean, Joseph Martin) the NIDCR Blue Ribbon Panel on Research Training and Career Development (2000); co-chaired (with Peter Johnson) the NIH Workshop on Biomimetics, Tissue Engineering, and Biomaterials (1998); and chaired the American Association of Dental Schools (AADS) Committee on Future Faculty, 1998-99. He is currently co-chairing (with Wendy Mouradian) a joint ADEA-AAMC panel on joint curricular issues for dental and medical students. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, a Fellow of the American College of Dentists (FACD), and a Fellow of the International College of Dentists (FACD). He has been a frequently invited speaker for the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), addressing deans and development officers on fundraising in higher education.
Prior to joining NYU in September 2001, Dr. Bertolami was Dean and Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of California-San Francisco School of Dentistry, posts he has held since 1995. A native Ohioan, Dr. Bertolami received his doctoral degree from Harvard in 1979, and received specialty training in the field of oral and maxillofacial surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
George Bugliarello, PhD
Polytechnic Institute of NYU
Dr. Bugliarello, President Emeritus, University Professor and former chancellor of Polytechnic University, is an engineer and educator with a broad background ranging from fluid mechanics to computer languages, biomedical engineering and science policy. Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Bugliarello also holds honorary lifetime membership in the National Association for Science, Technology and Society (NASTS). He is a Founding Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and, from 1994 to 1997, chaired the Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment of the National Research Council.
He has served as chair of the National Research Council's (NRC) Committee on Alternatives to Antipersonnel Landmines, and member of the NRC Committee on Army Science and Technology for Homeland Defense, and he is an appointed member of the U.S. National Academies-Russian Academy of Sciences Committee on Terrorism Confronting the U.S. and Russia, as well as co-chair of a joint Russian-American Task Force on Urban Security. Dr. Bugliarello is co-editor of Technology In Society-an International Journal, Interim Editor-in-Chief of The Bridge, the quarterly publication of the National Academy of Engineering, and serves on several editorial boards. He is a member and former president (1992-1993) of Sigma Xi, as well as Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer (1996-98).
Dr. Bugliarello's international experience includes consultantships abroad for UNESCO and OECD, and assignments as a specialist for the U.S. Department of State in Venezuela and Central Africa. He has been the U.S. member of the Science for Stability Steering Committee and of the Science for Peace Steering Committee, of the Scientific Affairs Division of NATO. He spearheaded the creation of Metrotech, the large university-industry park that now surrounds Polytechnic University and of which Polytechnic University was co-developer with Forest City; led the creation of the Center for Finance and Technology at Polytechnic and in 1997 initiated the Center for Technology in Merchandising, the first such center in the nation to establish a direct connection between academic programs in engineering and the needs of the merchandising industry. He organized the University's Urban Security Initiative to address passing urban security problems through the engineering, scientific, management and educational capabilities of Polytechnic and collaborating institutions, industries and public entities.
Janice Graham, PhD
Dalhousie University
Dr. Graham is Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Scientific Director of the Technoscience and Regulation Research Unit (TRRU) and the Qualitative Research Commons & Studio (QuRCs) in the Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. As a medical anthropologist, Dr. Graham draws upon anthropology, science studies, technology assessment and bioethics to approach cultural, technical and moral issues in health. Challenges of safety, effectiveness, standardization, risk, and trust figure prominently into Dr. Graham's mapping of biotechnological innovation to health inequalities. Dr. Graham's work on Alzheimer's disease and other dementia diagnostics during the 90's led to an interest in the moral basis of profit when disease is seen as a market opportunity. She studies regulatory practices, diagnostic imaginaries, and databases as cultural texts. Her more recent ethnographic research examines safety and efficacy in the regulation of emerging biotherapeutics and vaccines at Health Canada and internationally.
Dr. Graham held a postdoctoral fellowship in geriatric medicine and neuroepidemiology (1996-8) at Dalhousie University, an endowed Research Chair in Medical Anthropology at the University of British Columbia (1998-2002), and a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator award (1999-2002). She has been a visiting senior fellow, BIOS Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society, London School of Economics and Political Science, observer to Scientific and Technical meetings of the World Health Organization, and chaired the Health Canada Expert Advisory Panel on the Special Access Program.
Along with several book chapters, and a forthcoming edited book, Aging and Loss: Contesting the Dominant Paradigm, University of Toronto Press, her numerous articles have appeared in hight-impact scientific journals. Forthcoming research explores the development and introduction of a new conjugate vaccine in sub-Saharan Africa. She is the in-coming President of the Canadian Anthropology Society (2009-2010).
Invited Speakers
Joseph D. Bronzino, PhD, PE
BEACON, Trinity College
Dr. Bronzino is a Vernon Roosa Professor of Applied Science, an endowed chair at Trinity College, Hartford, CT and President of the Biomedical Engineering Alliance and Consortium (BEACON) which is a non-profit organization consisting of academic and medical institutions as well as corporations dedicated to the development of new medical technology. His scholarly interests revolve around the interdisciplinary field of Biomedical Engineering. Although trained as an Engineer, Dr. Bronzino's research activities have focused on how the brain works. Students engaged in the Electrophysiology Laboratory are exposed to: (1) quantifying bioelectric events, (2) quantifying the normal maturation of specific brain structures such as the hippocampus, and (3) quantifying the impact of various insults to the brain such as prenatal protein malnutrition and neonatal isolation on the developing brain.
In addition, having written over 200 journal articles and 15 books on the various fields that constitute the discipline of Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Bronzino offers courses that provide insight into the evolution of medical technology, the economic impact of these applications and the moral dilemmas they pose for our society. His educational goals are to motivate students to embrace interdisciplinary studies, integrate what is taught in the classroom with what one observes in the laboratory, and facilitate the development of good communication skills. He is committed to the education of the whole person.
Dr. Bronzino is a Fellow of IEEE and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), an honorary member of the Italian Society of Experimental Biology, past chairman of the Biomedical Engineering Division of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), a charter member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE), a charter member of the American College of Clinical Engineering (ACCE), a member of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), past president of the IEEE-Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS), past chairman of the IEEE Health Care Engineering Policy Committee (HCEPC), and past chairman of the IEEE Technical Policy Council in Washington, DC. He is also a recipient of the IEEE Millennium Medal for "his contributions to biomedical engineering research and education" and the Goddard Award from WPI for Outstanding Professional Achievement by WPI in 2005. He is also presently Editor-in-Chief of the Academic Press/Elsevier BME Book Series.
Kenneth R. Foster, PhD
University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Foster is Professor of Bioengineering, and Electrical and Systems Engineering at Penn Engineering, University Pennsylvania. Dr. Foster's research interests relate to biomedical applications of non-ionizing radiation from audio through microwave frequency ranges, and health and safety aspects of electromagnetic fields as they interact with the body. For example, he examines the prospects of workers in electrical occupations and the possibility (or lack of) cancer risk. Another and somewhat broader topic of interest is technological risk, and impact of technology (principally, electrotechnologies) on humans. Dr. Foster's goal in this area is to examine technology, putting into perspective its relative risks and benefits to society.
George Khushf, PhD
University of South Carolina
Dr. Khushf is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina. He has written extensively on medical ethics and served as the managing editor of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. Dr. Khushf is also the Humanities Director at the Center for Bioethics at USC. After receiving a B.S. (1983) in civil engineering at Texas A&M University, Dr. Khushf studied in religion and philosophy at Rice University, receiving an M.A. in 1990, and a PhD in 1993 and was a Fulbright Graduate Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Tübingen.. From 1993-95 he was the managing editor of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy and a Research Associate at Baylor of Medicine. In Spring 1995 he was the Rockwell Visiting Scholar at the University of Houston. Since July 1995 he has served as Humanities Director of the Center for Bioethics, and as a faculty member of the Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina. Recent activities have included service as co-chair of the Program Committee of the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities, and as a consultant for the state of South Carolina strategic planning initiative in public health, developing a schema for integrating diverse health concepts that are implicit in various health agencies. Dr. Khushf serves on the editorial boards of five journals, and has published extensively in bioethics and the philosophy of medicine. Current research focuses on administrative and organizational ethics, concepts of health and disease, and medical epistemology.
Daniel Vallero, PhD
Duke University
Dr. Vallero is Adjunct Associate Professor at the Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, where he conducts research focused on transport and transformation of organic compounds in environmental media, especially soil and the troposphere. He also leads the Pratt School's "Ethics across the Curriculum," which addresses ethics from introduction of academic integrity to first-year undergraduate students and throughout the students' academic and research experiences at Duke. He co-facilitates the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training for all Duke PhD students actually or potentially engaged in research, and conducts research and develops teaching approaches related to macroethics of emerging technologies.