Prof. Bellamkonda is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Joint Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech/Emory. Prof. Bellamkonda obtained his PhD from Brown University, Providence RI and completed his post-doctoral training at M.I.T in Cambridge, MA. Prof. Bellamkonda's research interests are in applying biomaterials based technologies for the repair and regeneration of the nervous system. Specifically, Prof. Bellamkonda's laboratory is interested in bridging long peripheral nerve gaps, overcoming regenerative failure in the central nervous system, interfacing electrodes with the brain and treating gliomas of the brain.

Prof. Bellamkonda leads the Neural Tissue Engineering programmatic thrust at GTEC, a National Science Foundation funded Engineering Research Center based at Georgia Tech/Emory. Prof. Bellamkonda has received numerous awards including a CAREER award, and Globus Indus Technovator award. Prof. Bellamkonda is a Fellow of American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and the Institute of Physics. He serves on the editorial board of Journal of Neuroengineering, IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation and Experimental Biology and Medicine. Prof. Bellamkonda is the Founding Scientist of Marval Therapeutics, Inc and his research is funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Norma Reed Foundation, and the Whitaker Foundation.

Dr. Theodore W. Berger is the David Packard Professor of Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience, and Director of the Center for Neural Engineering at the University of Southern California. Dr. Berger’s research uses experimental and theoretical methods to focus on biologically realistic nonlinear dynamic models of the nervous system. Preclinical applications of his research extend to the development of cognitive neural prostheses for restoring lost memory; practical applications extend to biologically-based models underlying spatio-temporal pattern recognition of threatening events.

Dr. Berger received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Irvine from 1977-1978, and was an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow at The Salk Institute from 1978-1979. Dr. Berger received a Person of the Year “Impact Award” by the AARP in 2004 for his work on neural prostheses, was a National Academy of Sciences International Scientist Lecturer in 2003, and an IEEE CAS Distinguished Lecturer in 2004-2005. Dr. Berger is a Fellow of IEEE, AIMBE and AAAS. He has published over 250 refereed journal articles, refereed conference proceedings, and book chapters, and is the co-editor of Toward Replacement Parts for the Brain: Implantable Biomimetic Electronics as Neural Prostheses published by the MIT Press in 2005, as well as the lead co-editor of Brain-Computer Interfaces published in 2008 by Springer. Translation of some of Dr. Berger’s research efforts have led to commercialization efforts through two companies: Safety Dynamics, Inc. and Rhenovia Pharma.

Kwabena A. Boahen directs Stanford University’s Brains in Silicon Laboratory, which develops silicon integrated circuits that emulate the way neurons compute, linking the seemingly disparate fields of electronics and computer science with neurobiology and medicine. His contributions to the field of neuromorphic engineering include a silicon retina that could be used to give the blind sight and a self-organizing chip that emulates the way the developing brain wires itself up. His scholarship is widely recognized, with over seventy publications to his name, including a cover story in the May 2005 issue of Scientific American. He has received several distinguished honors, including the National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award (2006). Professor Boahen’s BS and MSE degrees are in Electrical and Computer Engineering, from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD (both earned in 1989). His PhD degree is in Computation and Neural Systems, from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena CA (1997). From 1997 to 2005, he was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA. In December 2005, he joined Stanford’s Bioengineering Department as Associate Professor. His lab is currently developing Neurogrid, a specialized hardware platform created at Stanford that can now simulate a million cortical neurons in real-time—rivaling a supercomputer while consuming less than 10 watts.

Dr. James M. Bower received his Ph.D. in neurophysiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After a postdoctoral fellowship at NYU and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Dr. Bower was a professor at the California Institute of Technology for 17 years. In 2002, he moved to a joint position as Professor of Computational Biology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, and the University of Texas San Antonio. Dr. Bower's research is focused on both the cerebellum and the mammalian olfactory systems using a combination of modeling and experimental techniques. His laboratory has also been involved in numerous science infrastructure projects including establishing the neural simulation system GENESIS, one of two principle modeling platforms now used around the world to construct realistic models of the nervous system. Dr. Bower also has a long-standing interest and involvement in science education, ranging from founding the first summer course in computational biology at the Marine Biological Laboratory in 1988, to his recent founding of a summer school for computational neuroscience in Brazil for Latin American students. Dr. Bower is also the founder of the largest on-line learning virtual world for children, Whyville.net, which currently has 6.3 million registered users around the world.

Emery N. Brown is Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Health Sciences and Technology at MIT. He is the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He received his B.A. in Applied Mathematics (magna cum laude) from Harvard College, his M.D. (magna cum laude) from Harvard Medical School, and his Ph.D. in statistics from Harvard University. He completed his internship (internal medicine) at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and his residency (anesthesiology) at MGH. Dr. Brown is an anesthesiologist-statistician whose statistical research develops signal processing algorithms to study how neuronal ensembles represents and transmits information. His experimental research uses functional neuroimaging to study how anesthetics create the state of general anesthesia in the human brain. Dr. Brown serves on the Board of Mathematical Sciences and their Applications of the National Academies, the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke Advisory Council, the Board of Trustees of the International Anesthesia Research Society and he is the Co-Chair of the Advisory Committee for the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund Careers at the Scientific Interface Program. Dr. Brown is a fellow of the American Statistical Association, the AAAS, and the IEEE. He is member of the Institute of Medicine and a 2007 recipient of an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award.

Dr. Semahat Demir is the Program Director for Biomedical Engineering at National Science Foundation (NSF). She has lead and participated in 14 other NSF and interagency funding programs. She was the solicitation coordinator for Interagency Opportunities in Multi-Scale Modeling in Biomedical, Biological, and Behavioral Systems. At NSF, she received two awards: Program Officer Excellence Award and Director’s Award for Collaborative Integration.

Before joining NSF, Dr. Demir has held the position of professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Joint Biomedical Engineering Program of University of Memphis and University of Tennessee. Her academic research expertise is computational modeling of bioelectricity in cardiac cells and bursting neurons. She has developed simulation-based teaching and learning resources including the interactive cell modeling resource, iCell.

Semahat Demir received her PhD degree in electrical and computer engineering from Rice University and postdoctoral training at Biomedical Engineering Department, Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Demir has held leadership roles at IEEE EMBS, BMES, ASEE BED, and SWE. She served on the governing boards of 6 technical organizations including IEEE EMB AdCom, ASEE Bioengineering Division and SWE. She is an AIMBE fellow.

Don Deyo is Vice President of Product Development and Technology for Medtronic Neuromodulation; a role he has held since January 2004. Don is an experienced medical device R&D executive having joined Medtronic in 1983. Prior to his role in Neuromodulation, Don served in a variety of product development, technology and business management roles in Medtronic's Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management (CRDM) division including his last position as Vice President of Product Development and Technology. During his time in CRDM, Don led many pacemaker, defibrillator and information management initiatives from early concept to world wide commercialization. Prior to joining Medtronic, Don was with Control Data Corporation. Don holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering and an MBA.

Dominique M. Durand is Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Neurosciences and Director of the Neural Engineering Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He received an engineering degree from Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Electronique, Hydrolique, Informatique et Automatique de Toulouse, France in 1973. In 1974, he received a M.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Case Reserve University in Cleveland OH. He worked several years at the Addiction Research Foundation of Toronto, Canada and in 1982 received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering. He received an NSF Young Investigator Presidential Award as well as the Diekhoff and Wittke awards for graduate and undergraduate teaching and the Mortar board top-prof awards at Case Western Reserve University. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biomedical Engineering. His research interests are in neural engineering and include computational neuroscience, neurophysiology and control of epilepsy, non-linear dynamics of neural systems, neural prostheses and applied magnetic and electrical field interactions with neural tissue. He is the founder editor-in-chief of the Journal of Neural Engineering. He has obtained funding for his research from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and private foundations. He has published over 100 articles and he has consulted for many biotechnology companies and foundations.

Walter J. Freeman studied electronics in the US Naval Reserve 1944-46, physics and mathematics at MIT, medicine at Yale (MD cum laude 1954), internal medicine at Johns Hopkins, and neuropsychiatry at UCLA. He has taught neuroscience in the University of California at Berkeley since 1959, now as Professor of the Graduate School. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a MERIT Award from NIH in 1990, a Pioneer Award from the Neural Networks Council in 1992, was President of the International Neural Network Society in 1994, and is a Life Fellow of the IEEE. He has published over 400 articles and 5 books on brain dynamics.

Bin He is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor, and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota at Twin Cities. He serves as the Director of Center for Neuroengineering at the University of Minnesota. Dr. He received BS from Zhejiang University, China, and PhD from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, both with the highest honors, and completed his postdoctoral training at MIT, Cambridge, MA. His research interests include functional neuroimaging, mapping of epileptogenic brain networks from electrophysiological and hemodynamic measurements, brain-computer interface, and neural stimulation. Dr. He has published over 160 peer-reviewed journal articles, and is the Editor of book entitled "Neural Engineering" published by Kluwer Academic (2005). He serves in the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, IEEE Spectrum, Journal of Neural Engineering, Clinical Neurophysiology, Brain Topography. Dr. He was the recipient of the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, the Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association, and the University Scholar Award from the University of Illinois where he was on faculty. He is a past president of International Society of Bioelectromagnetism and of International Society of Functional Source Imaging, and is the 2009-2010 President of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Dr. He is a Fellow of IEEE, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and Institute of Physics.

Dr. William J. Heetderks is the Director of Extramural Science Programs at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), NIH. The extramural program supports approximately 800 research and training grants at universities and research centers throughout the United States in fields of bioengineering and biomedical imaging. Dr. Heetderks received the Ph.D. degree in Bioengineering from The University of Michigan. He received the MD degree from the University of Miami and is certified in Internal Medicine. Before joining NIBIB he was at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke where he directed the neural prosthesis program.

Dr. Daryl R. Kipke heads the Neural Engineering Laboratory at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is also the Director of the National Center for Neural Communication Technology at Michigan. Dr. Kipke's research is in the areas of neural interfaces, neuroprostheses, and neuromodulation. Dr. Kipke received the Ph.D. degree in Bioengineering in 1991 from Michigan. In 1991-1992, he was a Research Associate in the Department of Bioengineering and the Institute for Sensory Research at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. From 1992 to 2001, he was on the Bioengineering faculty at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. Since 2001, Dr. Kipke has been on the faculty in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Michigan. He teaches in the areas of biomedical instrumentation and neural engineering. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. Dr. Kipke founded and currently leads NeuroNexus Technologies Inc., an early-stage commercial neurotechnology company focused on the neuromodulation, neurosurgery and neuroscience research markets. He founded an earlier neurotechnology company that was acquired in 2006 by W.L. Gore, Inc. Dr. Kipke is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.

Born in 1956 in the American Midwest, Dr. Christof Koch grew up in Holland, Germany, Canada, and Morocco. He studied Physics and Philosophy at the University of Tübingen in Germany and was awarded his Ph.D. in Biophysics in 1982. After 4 years at MIT, he joined the faculty at the California Institute of Technology, where he remains as the Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology. He studies the biophysics of nerve cells, and the neuronal and computational basis of visual perception, attention, and consciousness. He has written four books (e.g. The Quest for Consciousness), more than three hundred and fifty scientific papers and journal articles and seven patents. Together with his long-time collaborator, Francis Crick, Christof pioneered the scientific study of consciousness. For the past ten years, he has collaborated with the neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried to record the activity of single neurons from the brain of patients. See www.klab.caltech.edu/~koch.

Todd A. Kuiken received his MD and  Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Northwestern (1990) and his  residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (1995).  Dr. Kuiken currently is the Director of the Neural Engineering Center for Artificial.  He is a Professor in the Depts. of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Biomedical Engineering and Surgery of Northwestern University.  He is also the Associate Dean, Feinberg School of Medicine, for Academic Affairs at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. 

Dr. Kuiken’s research team is working to develop a neural-machine interface to improve the function of artificial limbs.  The main research focus of the lab is developing a technique to use nerve transfers for improvement of myoelectric prosthesis control.  By transferring the residual arm nerves in an upper limb amputee to spare regions of muscle it is possible to make new signals for the control of robotic arms.  These signals are be directly related to the original function of the limb and allow simultaneous control of multiple joints in a natural way.  Similarly, hand sensation nerves grow into spare skin so that when this skin is touched, the amputee feels like their missing hand is being touched.

Jeff Lichtman has an AB from Bowdoin (1973), and an M.D. and Ph.D. from Washington University (1980) where he worked for 30 years and was most recently a Professor of Neurobiology. In 2004 he moved to Harvard where he is a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. He is a member of the newly established Center for Brain Science. Lichtman’s research interests revolve around the question of how mammalian brains accommodate information based on their early experiences. He has focused on the dramatic rewiring of neural connections that takes place in early postnatal development. This work has required development of techniques to visualize the patterns of connections in the nervous system and how they are altered over time.

Dr. Miguel Nicolelis is the Anne W. Deane Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Neurobiology, Biomedical Engineering and Psychology at Duke University. He is also Co-Director of Duke Center for Neuroengineering; and Co-Founder and Scientific Director of the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute for Neuroscience of Natal. Dr. Nicolelis is a native of Sao Paulo, Brazil where he received his M.D. and Ph.D. in Neurophysiology from the University of Sao Paulo.

Although for the past decade, Dr. Nicolelis is best known for his pioneering studies of Brain Machine Interfaces (BMI) and neuroprosthetics in human patients and non-human primates, he has also developed an integrative approach to studying neurological and psychiatric disorders including Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder. He has also made fundamental contributions in the fields of sensory plasticity, gustation, sleep, reward and learning. Dr. Nicolelis believes that this approach will allow the integration of molecular, cellular, systems, and behavioral data in the same animal, producing a more complete understanding of the nature of the neurophysiological alterations associated with these disorders.

Dr. Nicolelis’ research has been highlighted in MIT Review’s Top 10 Emerging Technologies. He was named one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Technology Leaders in America in 2004 and has twice received the DARPA Award for Sustained Excellence by a Performer. Other honors include the Whitehead Scholar Award; Whitehall Foundation Award; McDonnell-Pew Foundation Award; the Ramon y Cajal Chair at the University of Mexico and the Santiago Grisolia Chair at Catedra Santiago Grisolia. In 2007, Dr. Nicolelis was honored as an invited speaker at the Nobel Forum at the Karolinksa Institute in Sweden. More recently he was awarded the International Blaise Pascal Research Chair from the Fondation de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure and the 2009 Fondation IPSEN Neuronal Plasticity Prize. Dr. Nicolelis is a member of the French Academy of Science and the Brazilian Academy of Science and has authored over 150 manuscripts, edited numerous books and special journal issues, and holds three U.S. patents.

José C. Príncipe is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering and the BellSouth Professor at the University of Florida. He is also the Founder and Director of the Computational NeuroEngineering Laboratory (CNEL) at the University of Florida. He joined the University of Florida in 1987 after an eight-year appointment as Professor at the University of Aveiro in Portugal. Dr. Príncipe holds degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Porto (Bachelor), Portugal, and the University of Florida (M.Sc. and Ph.D.), USA, and a Laurea Honoris Causa degree from the Universita Mediterranea in Reggio Calabria, Italy. Dr. Príncipe’s interests lie in nonlinear non-Gaussian optimal signal processing and modeling and in biomedical engineering. He received the Career Achievements Award and Service Award from IEEE EMBS, and Gabor Award from the International Neural Network Society. Dr. Príncipe is a Fellow of the IEEE and AIMBE, past President of the International Neural Network Society, and past Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions of Biomedical Engineering, as well as a former member of the Advisory Science Board of the FDA. He is the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Principe is author of more than 400 refereed publications.

Dr. Melur K. Ramasubramanian is a Program Director for the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA. In addition, he holds an Associate appointment with the Joint UNC-NC State Biomedical Engineering Department. He is the Director of Mechatronics Program in Mechanical Engineering, jointly administered with Electrical and Computer Engineering, an interdisciplinary graduate program. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, in 1987, worked in Research and Development, Georgia Pacific Corporation, as a Research Associate from 1987-1994, when he joined NC State University as an Assistant Professor. He has a vibrant externally funded research program and currently advises six PhD students. His current research interests are in the area of Biomimetics, Microfluidics and Tissue Engineering, Bio-Mechatronics, and Computational Mechanics. Current research projects include Mosquito biting mechanics and applications to painless micro-needle design, Microencapsulation of islets for xenotransplantation using 3-D microfluidics, Implantable sensors (passive MEMS Intraocular Pressure Sensor), Near-bedside Opto-fluidic sensors for blood agglutination detection, and computational mechanics. He is a member of ASME, IEEE, EMBS, and TAPPI.

Dr. Ali Rezai is Julius F. Stone Chair and Professor of Neurosurgery, Director of Center for Neuromodulation, Director of Functional Neurosurgery, Director of Neurosurgical Innovations, and Vice Chair of Department of Neurosuregery at the Ohio State University. He held the Jane and Lee Seidman Chair in Functional Neurosurgery at the Cleveland Clinic prior to his recent move. Dr. Rezai’s clinical areas of expertise are the neurosurgical management of patients with severe movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and dystonia, psychiatric conditions such as depression and obsessive compulsive disorder, traumatic brain injury and chronic pain. Dr. Rezai was named one of the best doctors in America in Castle and Connolly’s Guide to America’s Top Doctors for 2001-2008. He serves on the editorial board of Neurosurgery Journal, among others. He has delivered over 300 lectures nationally and internationally and chaired numerous symposia and meetings. He is the recipient of NorTech’s annual Innovation Award, the Bottrell Neurosurgical Award, The Congress of Neurological Surgeons Clinical Fellowship award, and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons William Sweet Investigator Award. Dr. Rezai is also a member of the Executive Board of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS), North American Neuromodulation Society (NANS), and the American Society of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery (ASSFN). Dr. Rezai’s research focuses on mechanisms of neurostimulation, delineation of abnormal brain circuitry underlying disease processes, as well as developing neuromodulation devices and novel therapeutic strategies for treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders and autonomic disorders. He has been involved in pioneering work involving the use of brain pacemakers for treating Parkinson’s disease, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and traumatic brain injury, and holds 13 issued US patents. His work has been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, US News and World Report, USA Today, MIT’s Technology Review magazine, Newsweek, Time, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Reader’s Digest, The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune. He has appeared on numerous local and national radio and television broadcasts including CBS’ 60 Minutes, Prime Time, The Charlie Rose Show, The Diane Rehm Show, CNN, NPR, PBS, the BBC, MSNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS Nightly News and The Discovery Channel.

Peter Saggau is a Professor in the Departments of Neuroscience and of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics at Baylor College of Medicine and in the Department of Bioengineering at Rice University in Houston. He serves as the Director of an interinstitutional Training Program in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, and is an Elected Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He holds degrees from the School of Engineering of the Technical University Munich and the Medical School of the Ludwig-Maximillians University in Munich, Germany.

The Saggau Lab studies synaptic communication between nerve cells as well as information processing on the level of individual neurons and small neuronal populations. Research is carried out with combined experimental and theoretical approaches, using advanced optical imaging and computational techniques. To overcome the challenges inherent to imaging structure and function of living brain tissue, his group develops novel optical and computational tools which have resulted in several patents. Dr. Saggau’s research has been funded by the Whitaker Foundation, THECB, the Human Frontiers Science Program, NIH and NSF. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Neural Engineering (IOP), and Brain Structure and Function (Springer). He has trained many pre- and postdoctoral students as well as numerous undergraduate students and research interns.

Dr. Shenoy heads the Neural Prosthetic Systems Laboratory and co- directs the Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory at Stanford University. His group conducts neuroscience and neuroengineering research to better understand how the brain controls movement, and to design medical systems to assist those with movement disabilities. His neuroscience (systems and cognitive neuroscience) research investigates the neural basis of movement preparation and generation using a combination of electrophysiological (electrode array recordings in rhesus monkeys), behavioral, computational, and theoretical techniques. His neuroengineering (electrical and biomedical engineering) research investigates the design of high- performance neural prosthetic systems. This work includes statistical signal processing, machine learning, low-power circuits, and real-time system modeling and implementation. Dr. Shenoy is an Associate Professor at Stanford University, and is a recepient of NIH Director's Pioneer Award (2009).

Nitish V. Thakor is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Neurology at Johns Hopkins University. He received his undergraduate engineering degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India in 1974 and Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1981. Presently, he directs the Laboratory for Neuroengineering at Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine. His technical expertise is in the areas of brain-machine interface, neural prosthesis, neural diagnostic instrumentation, neural signal processing, optical imaging of the nervous system, microsystems neural regeneration and repair. His research is sponsored mainly by the NIH, NSF and DARPA for the past 25 years. He has published 195 refereed journal papers and generated 6 patents. He is the Editor in Chief of IEEE Transactions on Neural and Rehabilitation Engineering. He is also the Director of a Neuroengineering Training program funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Dr. Thakor has developed a new academic program in Economical Health Care Technologies for global health and is the Conference co-Chair for the first AMA-IEEE Medical Technology Conference on Individualized Healthcare. Dr. Thakor is a recipient of a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health and a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, IEEE and Founding Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society. He is also a recipient of the Centennial Medal from the University of Wisconsin School of Engineering, Honorary Membership from Alpha Eta Mu Beta Biomedical Engineering student Honor Society.

Van Wedeen, M.D., received a BA in Mathematics from Harvard College in 1997, and an MD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1981. Dr. Wedeen is currently an Associate Professor in Radiology at Harvard Medical School and an Assistant Neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Wedeen is a leading expert in functional neuroimaging. He pioneered the diffusion spectrum imaging (DSI) method and its application to brain connectivity mapping. For his contributions to the MRI field, he received the Fellow Award from the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine in 2006.

Bruce Wheeler is Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida and Interim Chair of the Department. He has been a Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and served as Founding and Interim Department Head. He has also been a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Beckman Institute, and a member and former chair of the Neuroscience Program. He is the Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering. He received the B.S. degree from MIT and later the M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and has been with the University of Illinois since 1980. He has also served as Associate Head of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Illinois. Prof. Wheeler’s research interests lie in the application of electrical engineering methodologies, signal processing and microfabrication, to the study of the nervous system, including the microlithographic control of the patterns of growth of neurons in vitro so as to permit stimulation and recording with microelectrode arrays. Hopefully this work will lead to better understanding of the behavior of small populations of neurons and lead to better insights into the functioning of the brain. He also has had involvement in algorithm development for directional hearing aids. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and the AIMBE.

Dr. Jonathan Wolpaw is Chief of the Laboratory of Neural Injury and Repair at the Wadsworth Center, New York State Dept Health, Albany, NY. He is a Professor of Biomedical Sciences, State University of New York at Albany, and is also on the faculty of Albany Medical College and Ohio State University. Over the past 30 years, his laboratory has developed and used operant conditioning of spinal reflexes to define the complex patterns of plasticity underlying vertebrate learning. This work has demonstrated that reflex conditioning changes the spinal cord and has begun to reveal the mechanisms of change, and is now showing that conditioning can guide spinal cord plasticity to improve walking after spinal cord injuries. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Wolpaw has also led development of EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI) technology to restore communication and control to people who are paralyzed. His group has shown that non-invasive EEG-based BCI technology can give control similar to that achieved by electrodes placed in the brain, and has begun to provide BCI systems to severely disabled people for daily use in their homes. The Wadsworth general-purpose BCI software platform, BCI2000, has been shared with over 500 research groups throughout the world. These achievements have received wide recognition and numerous national and international awards.