Atam P. Dhawan

Atam P. Dhawan is senior vice provost for research at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). He is a tenured Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Executive Director of the Center for Translational Research, and Executive Director of Undergraduate Research and Innovation. He is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE), Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and Fellow of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE) and serves on the NAI Board of Directors, NJII Board of Directors, R&D Council of NJ Board of Directors and as Chair of the NIH Point-of-Care Research Network Advisory Board. He has been recently appointed as an Invention Ambassador by the National Academy of Inventors.

Dr. Dhawan pioneered low-angle trans-illumination technology and first demonstrated its application in skin-cancer imaging and specifically diagnostic screening of skin-cancers in 1984. His invention, patented as Nevoscope, established the feasibility of point-of-care (POC) in-situ diagnostic evaluation of skin-lesions, creating the field of dermatoscopy for effective early detection of skin-cancers. His optical imaging cornerstone technology led to two successful medical companies for manufacturing and marketing of Veinlite and Dermlite devices, which respectively are being used in the interventional treatment of spider-vein diseases and early diagnosis and clinical management of skin-cancers, specifically malignant melanomas.

Dr. Dhawan chairs the NIH Point-of-Care Technology Research Network (POCTRN) Independent Expert Board since January 2019. He is a recipient of numerous awards including Martin Epstein Award (1984), NIH FIRST Award (1988), Sigma-Xi Young Investigator Award (1992), IEEE EMBS Early Career Achievement Award (1995), Doermann Distinguished Lecture Award (1999), EMBS Distinguished Lecturer award (2012-2013), IEEE EMBS William J. Morlock Award in Excellence in Biomedical Technology (2021) and NJ Innovate 100 Leaders Award (2024).

Dr. Dhawan served as the founding Editor-In-Chief of the IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine (2012-2018), and the founding chair of the IEEE EMBS technical committee on Translational Engineering and Healthcare Innovations (2014-2018). He also served as the Senior Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Editorial Board Member for International Journal of Pattern Recognition, and steering committee member for IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. Dr. Dhawan has chaired numerous NIH special emphasis and review panels, and site visit & review panels for NIH BTRR P41 program (1990-present). From 2008-2011, He chaired the NIH Chartered Study Section on Biomedical Computing and Health Informatics.

His research interests lie in medical imaging, medical image analysis, point-of-care technologies, and pattern recognition. Dr. Dhawan has received more than $86 million in research grants and contracts as Principal Investigator or Co-PI. He has published over 216 research papers and book chapters. He has also authored and co-authored several books in medical imaging, and image analysis. He holds several patents, three of which have been commercialized or licensed.

Dr. Dhawan has been a strong supporter of undergraduate research and innovation. In 2010, he funded the Interdisciplinary Design Studio (IDS) for undergraduate students with the engineering design, research and technology development for unmet market needs of high societal impact. Later in 2012, he developed the NJIT Undergraduate Research and Innovation (URI) program with the Dr. James Stevenson Innovation Awards. More recently, Dr. Dhawan founded the NJIT Center for Translational Research (CTR) for promoting excellence in collaborative research, innovation partnerships, entrepreneurial pathways, education and training, and infrastructure development to translate technology into applications with a high societal and economic impact. The CTR is funded by the Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program from the Technology, Innovation and Partnerships directorate of the National Science Foundation