Dr. Hekman completed her BA in Biophysics and Spanish Literature at Johns Hopkins. She then chose to pursue medicine and completed her MD and PhD in Molecular Medicine at the University of Chicago, where she found Vascular Surgery. She completed her Vascular Surgery Integrated Residency at Northwestern University, including a post-doctoral research fellowship in the lab of Dr. Jason Wertheim, MD, PhD. There she discovered the role of autophagy in the longevity and health of endothelial cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. She joined faculty in Vascular Surgery at Emory and the Atlanta VA Healthcare System in 2021, where her lab focuses on generating patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cell-derived endothelial cells to produce personalized regenerative therapies for vascular disease.

My lab, Biohybrid System Laboratory, is interested in elucidating how biological systems coordinate the hierarchical structures and functions of their individual components, in order to produce emergent physical behaviors, and how disrupting this coordination potentiates disease. We seek to design, build, and test a hierarchy of biohybrid systems capable of reproducing the targeted behaviors. Our primary interest is coordinated activation and contraction of tissue- and organ-level cardiac and skeletal muscle systems. To pursue this goal, we focus on the development of biohybrid fabrication methods and measurement systems through the combined application of genetic tools, induced pluripotent stem cells, tissue engineering, microfabrication, electronics, optics, and feedback control. The resulting findings and technical developments will be translated into various applications such as (1) stem cell-based functional assays for personalized disease diagnosis and treatment and (2) new types of biohybrid actuators for creating biological autonomous systems.

Dr. Leslie Chan is an Assistant Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Tech School of Engineering and Emory School of Medicine. Her research program integrates core and emerging principles from drug delivery, biomaterials development, and chemical biology to engineer diagnostic and therapeutic solutions for infectious disease, microbiome dysbiosis, and inflammatory diseases. Dr. Chan earned her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Tech and her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Washington with Professor Suzie Pun. She completed her postdoctoral training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Professor Sangeeta Bhatia. Dr. Chan is the recipient of an NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award.

Professor C. P. Wong is the Charles Smithgall Institute Endowed Chair and Regents’ Professor. After his doctoral study, he was awarded a two-year postdoctoral fellowship with Nobel Laureate Professor Henry Taube at Stanford University. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, he was with AT&T Bell Laboratories for many years and became an AT&T Bell Laboratories Fellow in 1992. 

His research interests lie in the fields of polymeric materials, electronic packaging and interconnect, interfacial adhesions, nano-functional material syntheses and characterizations. nano-composites such as well-aligned carbon nanotubes, grahenes, lead-free alloys, flip chip underfill, ultra high k capacitor composites and novel lotus effect coating materials. 

He received many awards, among those, the AT&T Bell Labs Fellow Award in 1992, the IEEE CPMT Society Outstanding Sustained Technical Contributions Award in 1995, the Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Faculty Best Research Paper Award in 1999, Best MS, PhD and undergraduate Thesis Awards in 2002 and 2004, respectively, the University Press (London) Award of Excellence, the IEEE Third Millennium Medal in 2000, the IEEE EAB Education Award in 2001, the IEEE CPMT Society Exceptional Technical Contributions Award in 2002, the Georgia Tech Class of 1934 Distinguished Professor Award in 2004, Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis Advisor Award in 2005, the IEEE Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology Field Award in 2006, the Sigma Xi’s Monie Ferst Award in 2007, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME)’s TEEM Award in 2008, the 2009 IEEE -CPMT David Feldman Outstanding Contribution Award and the 2009 Penn State University Distinguished Alumni Award. The 2012 International Dresden Barkhausen Award (Germany). 

He holds over 65 U.S. patents, numerous international patents, has published over 1000 technical papers, 12 books and a member of the National Academy of Engineering of the USA since 2000.

Eberhard Voit’s research interests are in the area of complex biomedical systems. Work in his lab focuses on genomic, metabolic, and signaling systems with applications reaching from microbial and plant systems to human diseases. Voit has authored or co-authored about two hundred fifty scientific articles and book chapters as well as several books. Voit is an elected a fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Denis Tsygankov, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech School of Engineering and Emory University School of Medicine. 

Dr. Tsygankov is interested in developing and applying computational methods, including mathematical modeling, simulations, and computer vision approaches to understand complex multi-scale physiological processes including vasculogenesis, morphogenesis, and cancer. 

He is a member of the Cell and Molecular Biology Research Program at Winship Cancer Institute.

Dr. Johnna S. Temenoff is the Carol Ann and David D. Flanagan Professor at the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech/Emory University. She is also currently the Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center in Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT) and the Director of the Marcus Center for Therapeutic Cell Characterization and Manufacturing (MC3M). Scientifically, Dr. Temenoff is interested in scaling culture of therapeutic cells and tailoring the molecular interactions between glycosaminoglycans and proteins/cells for use in regenerative medicine applications.  Her laboratory focuses primarily on promoting repair after injuries to the tissues of the shoulder, including cartilage, tendon, and muscle.

Dr. Temenoff has been honored with several prestigious awards, such as the NSF CAREER Award, Arthritis Foundation Investigator Award, and Society for Biomaterials (SFB) Clemson Award for Contributions to the Literature, and was named to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers (AIMBE), as a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), as a Fellow of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE) and as a Fellow of Biomaterials Science and Engineering, International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUSBSE).  She has co-authored a highly successful introductory textbook - Biomaterials: The Intersection of Biology and Materials Science, by J.S. Temenoff and A.G. Mikos (now in a 2nd edition), for which Dr. Temenoff and Dr. Mikos were awarded the American Society for Engineering Education’s Meriam/Wiley Distinguished Author Award for best new engineering textbook. 

Garrett Stanley is the McCamish Foundation Distinguished Chair in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and is the Co-Director of the Georgia Tech Neural Engineering Center. He has formal training, both at undergraduate and doctorate levels, in engineering (specifically trained in Control Theory through all of his graduate work), and has worked extensively in the field of neuroscience, specifically in sensory processing in the brain, and more specifically in vision and somatosensation (touch). 

From 1999 to 2007, he was an Associate Professor in the Division of Engineering & Applied Sciences at Harvard University, where he was the leader of the Harvard Biocontrols Laboratory. Professor Stanley is now a faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech/Emory University (2008-2013 Associate Professor, 2014-present Full Professor), and leads several programmatic efforts at the interface between basic neuroscience and neurotechnology (Co-Direct the GT Neural Engineering Center, Direct Computational Neuroscience training program, Director of Graduate Studies, etc.). In terms of research, he is the leader of the Neural Coding group in the Laboratory for Neuroengineering. 

The research of his group has been funded by the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, DARPA, and several private foundations. Prof. Stanley’s group routinely publishes our research in the top Neuroscience journals, along with more technical work in engineering journals. He is considered a leader in the field nationally and internationally.

The central goal of Dr. Singer’s research program is to understand how neural activity produces memories and spurs the brain’s immune system. Dr. Singer’s research integrates innovative behavioral, electrophysiological, and computational methods to identify and restore failures in neural activity that lead to memory impairment. Dr. Singer has established and continues to develop a new therapeutic approach to Alzheimer’s disease, novel forms of non-invasive stimulation, and new ways to manipulate the brain’s immune system. Additionally, using non-invasive approaches, she is translating her discoveries from rodents to develop radically new ways to treat diseases that affect memory in humans.