Vice-President-Elect, Finance Nominees
Colin Brenan, Kibur Medical Inc.
Bio:
Colin J.H. Brenan is a serial life sciences entrepreneur who is the CEO of Kibur Medical Inc. (www.kiburmed.com) , a company closing the translational research gap with a proprietary, in vivo pathology-driven technology that brings the laboratory to the patient, allowing drug developers to make better choices that accelerate their development programs and clinicians to select therapies that improve patient outcomes. Previously he was Founder/CEO & Director of the single cell instrumentation company 1CellBio Inc. (www.1cell-bio.com); formerly Founder/CCO & Director of antibody drug developer HiFiBiO Ltd (www.hifibio.com); and, Managing Director of the early-stage investor MonsantoAtlas Seed Fund Alliance at Atlas Venture (Cambridge, USA).
Prior to Atlas, Dr. Brenan was Director of Strategic Relationships at CIMIT, the MGB Healthcare innovation center (Boston, MA). Before CIMIT, Dr. Brenan was the Founder/CTO & Director of BioTrove Inc. (Woburn, USA) commercializing the OpenArrayTM, a nanofluidic PCR array acquired by ThermoFisher Inc.; and RapidFireTM, a HT MS prep system acquired by Agilent Inc.
Dr. Brenan is a prolific inventor (26 US patents, 27 ex-US patents), has published +50 peer-reviewed articles on diverse topics in biomedical science and technology and has created products with +$500M in aggregate global sales. He has over a decade of experience in consulting for the NIH and is an active Senior Member of the IEEE EMBS. Dr. Brenan received his B.Sc. (Honours Physics), M. Eng. (Electrical), and Ph.D. (Biomedical Engineering) from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) and completed post-doctoral training at MIT (Cambridge, USA).
Position Statement:
Prudent fiscal management, transparent financial reporting and ethical oversight are the foundation of a financially healthy Society and any successful company. From my nearly 30 years as a life science entrepreneur, I have gained broad and diverse financial experience that includes P&L responsibility, annual budgeting, HR, fund raising and overall fiscal oversight either as CEO, a C-level officer, or a member of the Board of Directors. If elected, I will apply my experience and expertise to ensure continuation of the current strong fiscal management of the Society’s finances that has allowed us to
maintain and grow our annual surplus.
Second, the VP Finance requires productive internal and external working relationships with Adcom, Excom and IEEE TAB. I believe the strong working relationships I have established across the Society during my 23 years of service in a diversity of roles will be a clear asset as VP Finance.
Third, I believe smart investment of our surplus in programs aligned with our strategic plan can increase opportunities and overall value of the Society to our members. As an example, investing in special topic conferences driven by our Technical Communities and Chapters can attract new members, provides current members with new opportunities and generates revenue that could be in part shared with the TCs and Chapters to sustainability seed their next activity. A modest initial investment could yield significant strategic and financial dividends over time.
In summary, I have the experience, expertise, and vision to be VP Finance and I look forward to serving you in that capacity.
Video Submission:
Rosa Chan, City University of Hong Kong
Bio:
Dr. Rosa H. M. Chan is currently an Associate Professor and Associate Head (Research and Graduate Programmes) of the Department of Electrical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include computational neuroscience, neural prosthesis, and human-computer interaction. She received the B. Eng. (1st Hon.) degree in Automation and Computer-Aided Engineering from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2003. She was later awarded the Croucher Scholarship and Sir Edward Youde Memorial Fellowship for Overseas Studies in 2004. She received her Ph. D. degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2011 from the University of Southern California, where she also received her M. S. degrees in Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Aerospace Engineering. She was the co-recipient of the Outstanding Paper Award of IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering in 2013, for their research breakthroughs in mathematical modeling for cognitive prosthesis. Dr. Chan was the Chair of the Hong Kong-Macau Joint Chapter of IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) in 2014. She is elected to the IEEE EMBS Administrative Committee (AdCom) as Asia Pacific Representative (2018-2023). And she is currently an editorial board member of the Journal of Neural Engineering and an area editor (neural signal processing and imaging) of Encyclopedia Brain (IEEE-Wiley).
Position Statement:
IEEE has been the cornerstone of my professional career. I was one of the founding committee members of the IEEE Student Branch at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and I have been an active IEEE member for 18 years. Serving as the Chair of the IEEE EMBS Hong Kong-Macau Joint Chapter in 2014 and participating as a committee member for 11 years have given me unique experience in local chapter management and member engagement. This is my honor to serve as a regional representative in AdCom for Asia Pacific, a region with diverse cultures and needs at local levels, in the past four years. COVID-19 has brought significant challenges to our chapters and committees. In particular, the value of membership is in question when the academic and professional models, e.g. publications and conferences, have rapidly evolved. If elected, I seek to explore the use of earnings to provide budgets to VPs for innovations and new initiatives while delivering healthy surpluses each year. It would be my focus to work closely with the committee and the executive office to ensure fiscal health for the long-term development of the society.
Video Submission:
Vice-President-Elect, Technical Activities Nominees
Ilaria Cinelli, AIKO
Bio:
Ilaria Cinelli Eng. PhD FAsMA FAsHFA is a senior engineer with work experience in biomedical engineering and space, including human factors, mission design, analogue missions and space medicine. Ilaria has a bachelor’s and Master’s degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Pisa (Italy) and a structured doctorate in neural engineering from the National University of Ireland Galway (Republic of Ireland). She is also a graduate of the International Space Studies program at TU Delft (The Netherlands), and she completed a Postdoc at Tufts University (USA) in neuromodulation.
Ilaria is a Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA) and the Aerospace Human Factors Association, a Former President of the Aerospace Human Factors Association and a Member-at-Large of the AsMA Council. Then she is an invited member of the Mars Society Steering Committee as an experienced Commander of several analogue missions. Also, she is the European Representative of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and serves the AdCOM.
Ilaria is one of the 35 most influential women in space, identified as a Mentor and Role Model of the Space4Women network of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs since 2020. In 2021, La Repubblica recognized her as one of the 100 women who will change the world and Il Sole24Ore as one of the 15 women who made their mark in Italy in the same year. More recently, Ilaria was selected as one of the top 12 by ASCEND Diverse Dozen 2021, powered by The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, for her vision of space traffic management.
Position Statement:
I see three objectives I would like to reach as VP of Technical Activities:
1. Transparency – The EMBS’s process for creating/running activities is not impactful, and I see the need for
investing in communication to ensure continuity in activities. Also, it will help members participate and
open Society to the community.
2. Leadership – The VP shall establish long-term goals, so shared goals that the technical communities,
committees and other groups will align to and reach together. Examples are annual events to report
technical activities to our community at large; annual/biannual surveys to measure the quality and impact of technical activities.
3. Impact – Technical activities shall be accompanied by debates with industry, governmental entities or other non-profits. As a Society, we shall deliver guidelines, inform policies and propose standards that might benefit the IEEE, our State/Country or other large administration. Such outcomes will increase the impact of Society and the benefits that our members receive.
Video Submission:
Gert Cauwenberghs, UC San Diego
Bio:
Gert Cauwenberghs is Professor of Bioengineering and Co-Director of the Institute for Neural Computation at UC San Diego, La Jolla CA. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from California Institute of Technology, Pasadena in 1994, and was previously Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, and Visiting Professor of Brain and Cognitive Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. He co-founded Cognionics Inc. and chairs its Scientific Advisory Board. His research focuses on micropower biomedical instrumentation, neuron-silicon and brain-machine interfaces, neuromorphic engineering, and adaptive intelligent systems. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed articles and conference proceedings with an h-index of 60, and holds 18 US patents. He received the NSF Career Award in 1997, ONR Young Investigator Award in 1999, and Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2000. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, as well as Francqui Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation. He served IEEE in a variety of roles including as Distinguished Lecturer, as General Chair of the IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference (BioCAS 2011, San Diego), as Program Chair of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference (EMBC 2012, San Diego), as Founding Chair of the IEEE EMBS Symposium and Workshop on Brain, Mind and Body (BMB 2019, San Diego), and as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems.
Position Statement:
Technical communities and meetings sponsored by EMBS provide unique opportunities for networking between members and for concerted efforts in promoting developments and investments in new and emerging areas of interest to the bioengineering and health science communities. As VP for Technical Activities I will strive towards continued excellence and impact of EMBS technical events and developments, focusing on broadening participation and improving quality of live interactions and content. I will work with EMBS leadership mainly on three objectives: 1) Greater opportunities for members to engage in a wide range of technical meetings in the form of hybrid on-site and remote online experiences, allowing live interaction between member participants, and archiving content available to the broader EMBS community; 2) Greater participation by students and young professionals by engaging EMBS student chapters and other broader interest groups in technical communities such as by organizing design competitions, and industry forums; and 3) Greater reach and impact by expanding the portfolio of technical events with new offerings in emerging areas of interest that resonate with timely opportunities for developments contributing to greater global health and wellness.
Video Submission:
Vice-President-Elect, Publications Nominees
Peter Elkin, University of Buffalo
Bio:
Dr. Elkin serves as the UB Distinguished Professor and Chair of the UB Department of Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Elkin has published over 200 peer reviewed publications and book chapters. He received his Bachelors of Science from Union College and his M.D. from New York Medical College. He did his NIH/NLM sponsored fellowship in Medical Informatics at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Elkin has been working in Biomedical Informatics since 1981 and has been actively researching health big data science since 1987. Dr. Elkin is a Master of the American College of Physicians and a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. He was awarded the Mayo Department of Medicine’s Laureate Award for 2005. Dr. Elkin is the index recipient of the Homer R. Warner award for outstanding contribution to the field of Medical Informatics. Dr. Elkin is an internationally renowned expert in knowledge representation, ontology, natural language processing and health IT standards. Dr. Elkin in 2018 received the Team Science Award from the National Center for Advancement of Translational Sciences and was elected an inaugural fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association for Clinical Informatics excellence and has been elected to the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics. He serves as co-chair of the NCATS iEC and of the NCATS Informatics Quality Metrics Committee. He publishes the Springer series Textbook on Terminology, Ontology, and their Implementations. He has been elected to the AMIA Board of Directors.
Position Statement:
I have served on the AdCom committee for the last several years and have been impressed by all the good work that you are doing. I have worked my whole career to increase research rigor and in rigor in the quality of scientific publications. I am the associate editor of many journals and am excited to work with EMBS leadership and our journal editors to continue to improve the quality of our journals and their impact factors and distribution.
Video Submission:
Thomas Penzel, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Bio:
Dr. Thomas Penzel is a IEEE fellow member. He graduated from physics (1986), human biology (1991), and physiology (1995) at the University Marburg, Germany. In 1997 he received a certificate for sleep medicine and a certificate for medical informatics. In 2001 he was awarded Professor at the University of Marburg. He was with the University of Marburg since 1982 and started many initiatives (cardiorespiratory sleep conferences and medical/engineering interdisciplinary symposia) to promote and strengthen sleep medicine in Germany and Europe. In 2006 he moved to Berlin to join the interdisciplinary sleep medicine center at the Charité University hospital and serves as scientific director of the sleep center. In 2001 he received the Bial award for clinical medicine in Portugal, 2008 the Bill Gruen Award for Innovations in Sleep Research by the Sleep Research Society, 2012 the Somnus Award by Sleep apnea patient groups in Germany, and 2014 the distinguished development award by the Chinese sleep research society.
Dr. Penzel was the conference chair of IEEE-EMBC 2019. He is distinguished lecturer of EMBS and mento in the EMBS mentoring program. 2021. He is an editorial board member on IEEE T[1]BME, IEEE TEHM. He holds the role of Editor and Associate Editor for other journals in biomedical engineering and sleep research. He authored more than 400 papers in Pubmed with an H-index over 60 and many conference papers. His research bridges biomedical engineering and sleep research.
Position Statement:
As previous chair of the German IEEE chapter Engineering in Medicine and Biology, previous chair of the TC on Cardiopulmonary system, EMB Adcom technical member, and conference chair of EMBC 2019 in Berlin, I am very familiar with the society’s structures and I’m well connected within the EMBS for many years. As VP publications I will advocate for an increase in EMBS journals visibility to the medical community, especially in the areas of cardiovascular, pulmonary and sleep medicine and to promote the EMBS activities in these areas even further. Being the scientific chair of the Interdisciplinary Medical Sleep Laboratory at the Charité Berlin, I work now for many years at a direct interface between engineering and medicine and I would love to dedicate my experience in the EMB Adcom in order to promote EMBS journals to increase the submission of high quality science and to increase citations as well. This will increase the impact factor which will make the journals even more attractive. My understanding of IEEE EMBS is, that together we run international conferences of top quality and that we publish journals with the top science in biomedical engineering. We are already at top ranks and want to reach more visibility, especially in these times which depend on advances in biomedical engineering and science.
Video Submission:
Henry Hess, Columbia University
Bio:
Henry Hess is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University in the City of New York. He received the Dr. rer. nat. in Physics from the Free University Berlin (Germany) in 1999. After appointments as Postdoctoral Scientist and Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington, he joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Florida in 2005 as Assistant Professor. Since 2009, he is teaching and researching at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University in New York City. Prof. Hess is a Senior Member of the IEEE, served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on NanoBioscience from 2014 to 2019, and is currently serving as EMBS representative to the IEEE Nanotechnology Council Administrative Committee as well as an Associate Editor for the EMB section of IEEE Access. His primary research interest is nanobiotechnology, in particular hybrid nanodevices and materials merging biological and synthetic building blocks. Creative approaches to the design of such devices draw from chemistry, biotechnology, microfabrication, biology, and engineering.
Position Statement:
EMBS owns many of the leading journals in the biomedical engineering space, and to be entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining, defending, and growing these outlets for the creative products of the EMBS members is a tremendous responsibility. I observed the outstanding work of highly distinguished individuals volunteering as VP Pubs and as Editor-in[1]Chief. It was a pleasure and an honor to learn from these leaders, and I would be thrilled to return and be part of the team again. I was also involved with the IEEE publications effort as a whole, for example, by undergoing two PRAC reviews during my tenure. My interactions with the Executive Office team impressed upon me the key role the publications portfolio plays for the EMBS finances, and gave me a tremendous appreciation for the work of the EMBS staff in supporting the volunteers. The ability of the publications portfolio to make a contribution towards supporting society activities is of course under dire threat by the open access model. A collapse of the subscription revenue is likely, and there is little that an individual society such as EMBS can do about it beyond trying to delay as long as possible. Furthermore, a serious challenge by new state-subsidized Chinese journals for a significant part of the manuscript flow can be expected. This period of crisis will require the development of a long-term vision for a changing publishing landscape, nimbleness in managing the transition, and hard choices about activities which do not sustain themselves.
Video Submission: