Announcements

Xavier Intes has been elected a Fellow of The Optical Society (OSA) by the Board of Directors during their 16 September 2019 meeting in Washington, DC. Since 1959, over 2,500 members have joined the ranks of OSA Fellow. These members have served with distinction in the advancement of optics and photonics through distinguished contributions to education, research, engineering, business and society.

Juergen Hahn, the head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has been invited to speak at the next meeting of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology (BCST). Hahn also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.
Joan Llabre, a graduate student in Dr. Deepak Vashisht's lab, has received a 2019 ASBMR Young Investigator Award for her abstract presentation Circadian Rhythm Disruption in Combination with High-Fat Diet alters Glycemic Control and impair Bone Health.

The Rensselaer Board of Trustees has approved Eric Ledet's promotion to the rank of Professor. Eric Ledet joined the Rensselaer faculty in 2005 as an assistant professor and he was promoted to associate professor in 2012. In 2013, Dr. Ledet received the Board of Trustees' Outstanding Teacher Award and in 2015 he was awarded the ISSLS prize by the International Society for Study of the Lumbar Spine and the journal SPINE. Dr. Ledet's laboratory focuses on translational orthopaedic biomechanics and medical device design.

The Graduation reception is held at the Academy Hall Auditorium on May 17, 2019 to celebrate the achievements of the students graduating this year. A total of 95 students are graduating with a BS, 12 with a Masters, and 12 PhDs are awarded. The number of doctoral students receiving degrees is at a record level and the number of BS degree recipients is among the highest that the department has had, reflecting the popularity of the program. In addition to honoring the graduating students, several awards are given: The Paul B. Daitch Memorial Award: Douglas M. Wich The Zelda & David G.

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowships were announced today and three current BME graduate students have been selected as winners of the NSF fellowships: - Robert Culibrk (Mariah Hahn's lab) - Jessica Funnell (Ryan Gilbert's lab) - Samuel Stephen (Deepak Vashishth's lab) Not only is receiving three NSF Fellowships the highest number that the department has had in many years, but BME students won half of the NSF GRFPs assigned to the entire institute! This is an excellent reflection of the high quality of students joining the program and the mentoring that they receive. In addition to current g
Jason Smith, a graduate student in Xavier Intes' lab, has been selected for the Eiffel scholarship which allows him to continue his doctoral research at an institution in France for a one year duration. Jason’s PhD project is highly interdisciplinary and aims at implementing structured light illumination for real time functional imaging in an endoscope imaging fused with molecular optical imaging (fluorescence lifetime imaging) and augmented with Deep learning for real time optical surgery.
Jessica Funnell, a graduate student in Dr. Ryan Gilbert's lab, has been awarded a New York State Fellowship in Spinal Cord Injury Research. This is a competitive fellowship where the application was peer reviewed. The fellowship covers tuition and salary for a three year period. More information about the New York State Spinal Cord Injury Research program can be found here: https://www.wadsworth.org/extramural/spinalcord