Message from the Chair

Welcome to the Fall 2023 newsletter for the USC Viterbi Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering.

I'm proud to lead our department as it moves from strength to strength during our first year under our new name. The Alfred E. Mann Charities and Alfred E. Mann Foundation's historic $35 million gift to biomedical engineering at USC is already supporting research excellence, the recruitment of talented new faculty and the strengthening of research ties with Keck School of Medicine of USC. We are excited to be forging a new pipeline from research and innovation to real-world patient applications of our life-changing technologies.

Recent months have seen numerous developments and achievements in the department. Our faculty and students had a significant presence at the recent BMES Annual meeting in Seattle, which was co-chaired by Stacey Finley, who was also recently promoted to Professor. During August, our faculty and staff had a highly productive department retreat, where we planned the future direction of our department and how the Alfred E. Mann Charities' extraordinary gift can further strengthen our research, teaching and innovation programs.

Many of our faculty members and research students have received prestigious grants and honors in recent months. Eun Ji Chung has been elected a BMES Fellow and was also recognized with a Collaborative Sciences Award from the American Heart Association for new research with Meena Madhur at Indiana University to study T-cell targeted nanomedicine approaches for hypertension.

Our department is leading two out of the six projects supported by the 2023 USC Research and Innovation Collaborative Research and Planning Awards.

Qifa Zhou has been appointed a USC Kaprielian Fellow in Engineering, and was recently chair of the successful International Conference on Ultrasound Engineering for Biomedical Applications, held in Torrance, California. Francisco Valero-Cuevas was also recognized for his mentorship of graduate students, receiving USC's Provost Excellence in Mentoring Award.

Learn more about our exciting research, groundbreaking innovation, outstanding faculty, and talented students. We hope you enjoy these recent highlights from our department.

Peter Yingxiao Wang

Department Chair, Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

Dwight C. and Hildagarde E. Baum Chair in Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Molecular Microbiology & Immunology