Georgia Tech Researchers Join Medical and Bioengineering Elite

WASHINGTON, D.C.— Four faculty members from the Georgia Institute of Technology have been accorded one of the highest professional distinctions accorded to a medical and biological engineer. Mark Borodovsky, Eva Lee, Manu Platt, and W. Robert Taylor have been inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows.

Borodovsky, Platt, and Taylor all share another distinction – they are faculty members of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. Together with Lee they all are researchers in the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech as well.

The College of Fellows is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers. College membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering and medicine research, practice, or education” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of medical and biological engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to bioengineering education.”

Borodovsky, Regents’ Professor in the Coulter Department and director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics at Georgia Tech, was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the College of Fellows for, “outstanding contribution to Bioinformatics by developing effective algorithms critically important for accelerated progress of genomics science and engineering.”

Lee is the Virginia C. and Joseph C. Mello Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, where she also serves as director of the Center for Operations Research in Medicine and Healthcare. She’s also co-director of the Center for Health Organization Transformation (an NSF Industry/University Cooperative research center). She was recognized for, “contributions in novel cancer therapeutics, vaccine immunogenicity prediction, and public health emergency preparedness with successful implementation and broad impact.”

Platt, associate professor, Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Scholar, and co-founder of Project ENGAGES at Georgia Tech, was recognized for, “outstanding contributions to diversity, inclusion, community involvement, and interdisciplinary research aimed at global health problems and domestic health disparities.”

Taylor, who is the Marcus Chair in vascular medicine, professor of medicine and biomedical engineering, director of cardiology, and executive vice chair of the department of medicine at Emory, was honored for,  “outstanding contributions advancing our understanding the pathology of cardiovascular disease.”

Borodovsky, Platt, and Taylor were inducted (along with 156 colleagues who make up the AIMBE College of Fellows Class of 2019) at a formal ceremony during the AIMBE Annual Meeting at the National Academy of Sciences, today in Washington, DC.

While most AIMBE Fellows hail from the United States, the College of Fellows has inducted Fellows representing 30 countries. AIMBE Fellows are employed in academia, industry, clinical practice and government.

AIMBE Fellows are among the most distinguished medical and biological engineers including two Nobel Prize laureates, 17 Fellows having received the Presidential Medal of Science and/or Technology and Innovation, and 158 also inducted to the National Academy of Engineering, 72 inducted to the National Academy of Medicine and 31 inducted to the National Academy of Sciences.