Faculty
The Department of Bioengineering attracts top researchers and instructors. Full-time, tenure-system faculty lead robust, comprehensive research laboratories. Additionally, these faculty collaborate with affiliated faculty within UTD, as well as other institutions’ adjunct faculty and in industry. The department has 24 tenure system faculty, 9 instructional faculty, 20 affiliated faculty and 27 adjunct faculty. We’re also proud to welcome four new faculty members to the Bioengineering department.
TENURE – SYSTEM FACULTY
Orlando Auciello
Professor
Distinguished Chair in Engineering
Leonidas Bleris
Professor
Fellow, Assoc. Dept. Head for Graduate Studies, Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor
in Systems Biology Science
Chen Cao
Assistant Professor
Baowei Fei
Professor
Cecil H. and Ida Green Chair in Systems Biology Science
Yongsheng Gao
Assistant Professor
Jacopo Ferruzzi
Assistant Professor
Heather Hayenga
Associate Professor
Seth Hays
Associate Professor
Fellow,
Eugene McDermott Professor
Caroline Jones
Assistant Professor
Joseph Pancrazio
Vice President for Research
Professor
Shalini Prasad
Department Head Professor,
Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor in Systems Biology Science
Danieli Rodrigues
Associate Professor
David Schmidtke
Professor, Assoc. Dept.
Head for Joint Graduate Program
Shashank Sirsi
Associate Professor
Victor Varner
Associate Professor
INSTRUCTIONAL FACULTY
Tariq Ali
Associate Professor of Instruction
Fang Bian
Research Scientist
Katherine Brown
Assistant Professor of Instruction
Levi Good
Assistant Professor of Instruction
Clark Meyer
Associate Professor of Instruction
Kathleen Myers
Associate Professor of Instruction
Todd Polk
Professor of Practice
Ben Porter
Associate Professor of Instruction
Christian Rivera
Assistant Professor of Instruction
AFFILIATED FACULTY
Professor
Electrical & Computer Engineering, UT Dallas
Carlos Busso
Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering, UT Dallas
Xianming (Simon) Dai
Associate Professor
Mechanical Engineering, UT Dallas
Crystal Engineer
Assistant Professor
School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, UT Dallas
Jeremiah Gassensmith
Associate Professor
Chemistry and Biochemistry, UT Dallas
John Hart Jr
Distinguished Chair in Neuroscience
Professor
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, UT Dallas
Fatemeh Hassanipour
Professor
Mechanical Engineering, UT Dallas
Ana Hernandez-Reynoso
Research Scientist
Bioengineering, UT Dallas
Michael Kilgard
Director / Margaret Fonde Jonnson Professor
Texas Biomedical Device Center / Cognition and Neuroscience Program, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, UT Dallas
David Lary
Professor
William B. Hanson Center for Space Sciences, Physics, UT Dallas
Lloyd Lumata
Associate Professor
Physics and Neuroscience, UT Dallas
Faruck Morcos
Associate Professor
Biological Sciences, UT Dallas
Issa Panahi
Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering, UT Dallas
Balakrishnan Prabhakaran
Professor
Computer Science, UT Dallas
Zhenpeng Qin
Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering, UT Dallas
Bart Rypma
Professor
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, UT Dallas
Mihaela Stefan
Department Head, Eugene McDermott Professor
Chemistry and Biochemistry, UT Dallas
Yonas Tadesse
Associate Professor
Mechanical Engineering, UT Dallas
Lakshman Tamil
Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering, UT Dallas
Jie Zheng
Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor; Systems Biology Professor
Chemistry and Biochemistry, UT Dallas
ADJUNCT FACULTY
Claudia Biguetti
Assistant Professor
School of Podiatric Medicine, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Spencer Bowen
Assistant Professor
Radiology, UT Southwestern
Isaac Chan
Assistant Professor
Internal Medicine and Molecular Biology, UT Southwestern
Yasin Dhaher
Professor R. Wofford Cain, Distinguished Chair in Bone and Joint Disease Research
Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and Orthopaedic Surgery, UT Southwestern
Ibrahim Hashim
Professor, A.J. Gill Professorship in Pathology Department of Pathology, UT Southwestern
Anke Henning
Professor and Director,
Advanced Imaging Research Center, UT Southwestern
Karanjit Kooner
Associate Professor
Ophthalmology, UT Southwestern
Bradley Lega
Associate Professor of Neurological
Neurological Surgery, UT Southwestern
Nan Li
Assistant Professor
Thomas O. Hicks Scholar in Medical Research, Advanced Imaging Research Center, Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, UT Southwestern
Jiaen Liu
Assistant Professor
Advanced Imaging Research Center, UT Southwestern
Ananth Madhuranthakam
Director, Magnetic Resonance Research, and Associate Professor
Radiology, UT Southwestern
Vinay Nagaraj
Senior Medical Science Liaison
AstraZeneca
Hyun-Joo Nam
Lecturer
University of North Texas
Juan Pascual
Professor
Neurology & Neurotherapeutics, Physiology & Pediatrics
Isaac Pence
Assistant Professor
Biomedical Engineering & Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern
Alexander Pertsemlidis
Professor
Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institution, Departments of Pediatrics and Cell Systems & Anatomy, Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine,
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
Matthew Petroll
Professor
Dr. W. Maxwell Thomas Chair in Ophthalmology, Graduate Program in Biomedical Engineering, UT Southwestern
Jay P. Shah
Assistant Professor
Orthopaedic Surgery, UT Southwestern Medical Center
Chad Swank
Senior Research Investigator
Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Research, Baylor Scott & White Research Institute
Homayoun Valafar
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Carolina
Elena Vinogradov
Associate Professor
Radiology and Advanced Imaging Research Center, UT Southwestern
Gregory Thoreson
Medical Director of the Department of Clinical Research
Urology Clinics of North Texas
Nian Wang
Associate Professor
Advanced Imaging Research Center, UT Southwestern
Joel Wells
Medical Director of the Comprehensive Hip Center Program & Hip Preservation Center
Baylor Scott and White
Jaewon Yang
Assistant Professor
Radiology and Advanced Imaging Research Center, UT Southwestern
James Yurkovich
Chief Innovation Officer
Phenome Health
WELCOME NEW FACULTY
Dr. Chen Cao, Assistant Professor
Dr. Chao is a bioengineer and developmental biology researcher. She earned her Ph.D. in Biophysics from Peking University, along with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biomedical engineering from Southeast University in China. Dr. Cao completed her postdoctoral training in developmental biology at the Lewis-Sigler Institute of Integrative Genomics in Princeton, where she contributed significant efforts to cell lineage reconstruction with single-cell sequencing technology and the novel cell type evolution in the Ciona nervous system. Dr. Cao was awarded Pathway to Independence Awards (K99/R00) by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and was recruited to UT Dallas as the First-Time Tenure Track member by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.
The Cao Lab utilizes and develops cutting-edge single cell omics, imaging and microfluidics tools to investigate on lineages commitment, cell type evolution and cell-cell interactions (e.g. Cao et al., Nature 2019; Lemaireetal., Science Advances, 2021; Chen et al., Plos Biology, 2022). Her research aims to elucidate the gene regulatory grammar in embryogenesis and cancer development.
Dr. Yongsheng Gao, Assistant Professor
Dr. Yongsheng Gao received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Harbin Institute of Technology (China) and earned his Ph. D. in 2017 from University College Dublin (Ireland). He then completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard University under the direction of Samir Mitragotri. Dr. Gao is a member of several professional societies and an author or co-author of more than 50 scientific publications.
Dr. Gao’s research interests lie in the intersection of biomaterials, drug delivery, and bioengineering. The research emphasizes the design and synthesis of architecturally complex polymers for various biomedical applications, including drug/gene delivery, tissue adhesion, hemostasis, and wound healing. The ultimate goal of Dr. Gao’s work is to provide materials-based solutions to address unmet needs in healthcare, biomedicine, and regenerative medicine.
Dr. Brian N. Kim, Associate Professor
Dr. Brian N. Kim is an accomplished researcher with expertise in multimodal neural interfaces, brain-machine interfaces, neurochemical sensors, single-cell electrophysiology, and medical diagnostics. He is a recognized recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2022, and his research has been funded by competitive grants from prestigious organizations such as National Institutes of Health (NIH) (R01 and R21), National Science Foundation:(NSF) (CAREER and other awards), and U.S. Department of Defense (Air Force Office of Scientific Research).
Before joining The Department of Bioengineering at the University of Texas at Dallas, Dr. Kim served as an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Central Florida and worked as a senior electrical engineer at Roche Diagnostics in Seattle. Dr. Kim received his postdoctoral training in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 2014, and has since made significant contributions to the field of bioengineering.
Dr. You Li, Assistant Professor
Dr. You Li is an Assistant professor for the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. Prior to joining the department, Dr. Li completed his post-doctoral training at Stanford University in Dr. Jeremy Dahl’s lab.
Dr. Li has received a prestigious NIH K99/R00 award, and in 2021, he was honored with the New Investigator Award in Basic Science from the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine. Dr. Li’s cutting-edge research focuses on the integration of medical ultrasound imaging techniques and artificial intelligence to advance translation research. Specifically, he is working on developing innovative approaches for human placental hemodynamic imaging and early diagnostics of abnormalities, as well as quantitative ultrasound imaging of the mechanical properties of human tissue and functional neonatal brain imaging. His work holds significant promise for advancing our understanding of these critical areas and improving medical diagnostics and treatment options.