Dr. Stanislav Emelianov, Ph.D.
Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and Joseph M. Pettit Professor
School of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University Medical School
Dr. Emelianov is Director of the Ultrasound Imaging and Therapeutics Research Laboratory where projects are focused on the discovery, development and clinical translation of diagnostic imaging and image-guided therapy augmented with theranostic nanoagents. Throughout his career at the University of Michigan, the University of Texas at Austin, and now at Georgia Tech and Emory, Dr. Emelianov has been developing advanced functional, cellular and molecular imaging methods capable of detecting and diagnosing cancer and other pathologies, assisting treatment planning, enhancing image-guided therapy, and monitoring of the treatment outcome. In recognition of his contributions to the field, Dr. Emelianov has been named a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Acoustical Society of America (OSA), and Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).
Dr. Naomi Halas, Ph.D., D.Sc.
Stanley C. Moore Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy
Director, Smalley-Curl Institute and Director, Laboratory for Nanophotonics
Rice University
Dr. Halas is the Stanley C. Moore Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with appointments in the Departments of Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy, Bioengineering, and Materials Science and Nanoengineering. She is the Founding Director of the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University and Director of the Smalley-Curl Institute. She received her Ph.D. in physics from Bryn Mawr College, pursuing her thesis research as a graduate fellow at IBM Yorktown. She then served as a postdoctoral researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories, joining the Rice faculty in 1990.
Dr. Halas is best known for showing that the nanoscale internal and external morphology of noble metal nanoparticles controls their optical properties. She was the first person to introduce structural control into the colloidal synthesis of coinage metal nanoparticles to control their optical resonances, which are due to their collective electron oscillations, known as plasmons. Her work has been the force that merged chemical nanofabrication with optics, giving rise to the field of Plasmonics. She pursues fundamental studies of coupled plasmonic systems as well as applications of plasmonics in biomedicine, optoelectronics, chemical sensing, photocatalysis, and solar water treatment. She is the author of more than 350 refereed publications, has more than fifteen issued patents, has presented more than 600 invited talks, and has been cited more than 98,000 times (over 70,000 citations and H=132 on Web of Science, over 98,000 citations and H=152 on Google Scholar). She is co-founder of Nanospectra Biosciences, a company offering ultralocalized photothermal ablation therapies for cancer based on her nanoparticles, currently in a multi-site clinical trial for prostate cancer. She is also co-founder of Syzygy Plasmonics, developing a light-based chemical reactor for photocatalyst particles originally invented in her laboratory.
Dr. Halas is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a recipient of the R.W. Wood Prize from the Optical Society of America, the Frank Isakson Prize for Optical Effects in Solids and the Julius Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society, and the American Chemical Society Award in Colloid Chemistry. She is a Fellow of several professional societies: OSA, APS, SPIE, IEEE, MRS, the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), the National Academy of Inventors (US) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has been a National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow of the U.S. Department of Defense and an advisor to the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate of the National Science Foundation. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Chemical Physics Letters, Materials Horizons, and Laser and Photonics Reviews, ACS Nano and Nano Letters.
Dr. Natalia Trayanova, Ph.D.
Murray B. Sachs Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University
Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Director, Alliance for Cardiovascular Diagnostic and Treatment Innovation
Dr. Trayanova holds the Murray B. Sachs Professorship in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. She is also a Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and a Professor of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Johns Hopkins University. She directs the Alliance for Cardiovascular Diagnostic and Treatment Innovation (ADVANCE), a research center aimed at bringing directly into the clinic innovative engineering and artificial intelligence (AI) approaches to cardiovascular health. Trayanova is the Director of Research in Health and Medicine in the new Data Science and AI Institute at Johns Hopkins. Trayanova also directs the Computational Cardiology Laboratory. Using a personalized simulation and machine learning approaches, her lab has developed new methodologies for predicting risk of cardiac arrest and improving the accuracy and outcome of atrial and ventricular catheter ablation therapies. Through our first-of-their-kind personalized digital twin and artificial intelligence technologies, her team is working at advancing personalized medicine for patients with cardiovascular disease, to influence clinical decision-making and the delivery of patient care. She is currently conducting an FDA-approved clinical trial in sdigital-twin-driven treatment for cardiac arrhythmias. Dr. Trayanova has published over 430 scientific papers, many of them in journals of high impact. She has also given over 300 invited talks, keynotes, and plenary lectures.
For her pioneering work in computational cardiology, in 2013, Trayanova received the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award. In 2019, Trayanova was inducted in the Women of Technology International Hall of Fame. She has been awarded the Distinguished Scientist Award (2019); followed by the Zipes Distinguished Lectureship Award (2022) from Heart Rhythm Society. In 2023, she was awarded the Gordon Moe lectureship by the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society. In recognition for her innovations, Trayanova was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. She is a Fellow of all American and European cardiology societies: American College of Cariology, American Heart Association, Heart Rhythm Society, European Society of Cardiology, and European Heart Rhythm Association. She is also a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Biomedical Engineering Society, and International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering. Her work has been featured by a large number of news outlets, including a TEDx talk.