Three BME Professors Promoted

This week, three Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering professors at Georgia Tech received promotions:

* Gabe Kwong was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure

* Melissa Kemp was promoted to Professor

* Joe Le Doux was promoted to Professor

A short summary of each follows:

Gabe Kwong Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure

Kwong's lab pioneers powerful new technologies to address frontier clinical challenges – including ultrasensitive diagnostics for early detection of disease, engineered T cells as curative therapies, and high-throughput tools to study rare immune cells. His research directly impacts a broad range of complex human diseases including cancer, organ transplant rejection, and infectious diseases. Kwong’s innovative research has been recognized by the NIH New Innovator Award, Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface, and the Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation Award.

Melissa Kemp Promoted to Professor

Kemp has pioneered the use of computational systems biology models to understand and predict cellular behaviors in development, health, and disease, and provide the scientific community with a roadmap for new diagnostic and treatment pathways for a wide range of diseases. Her models have forced the field of molecular biology to develop new methods for measuring short-lived molecules and protein modifications, which she proposes are the unique “fingerprints” of cell communication, post-genetic variability, and cell stress responses that are responsible for biological variability.

Kemp’s models are the key to unlock the basis for (and opportunities of) personalized medicine and patient-specific therapies. Importantly, subsequent experiments by colleagues in the field have validated her paradigm-shifting theories. Her innovative scholarship has been recognized by many awards: NIH New Innovator, the CSF2 Prize for Innovative Measurement Methods, and the Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar award.

Joe Le Doux Promoted to Professor

Le Doux has gained unprecedented recognition as a scholar and pioneer in the field of engineering education and curriculum innovation, as evidenced in part by his being awarded the National Academy of Engineering Gordon Prize in 2019. The Gordon Prize establishes the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (and Georgia Tech) as the national leader in innovative training of engineering leaders. Le Doux’s early gene therapy research program was recognized with an NSF CAREER Award, funding from the Whitaker Foundation, and multiple research seed grants from Emory, Centers for Disease Control, and Georgia Tech.

He has served in departmental leadership as associate chair for undergraduate studies (2011-2013); executive director for learning and student experience (2013-2015), and is BME’s associate chair for undergraduate learning and experience, and also chairs BME's culture, diversity and inclusion committee.