The annual awards ceremony at the National Academy of Engineering was highly unusual in that, of the 12 broad engineering categories represented at the NAE (from chemical to mechanical and civil to electrical), three 2019 NAE awards were in biomedical engineering. According to NIBIB Director Dr. Bruce Tromberg, “This was an important recognition of the transformative impact and growth of engineering in medicine and biology. Engineering is essential to understanding and improving human health.”

The October 6 event in Washington, DC, honored the founding director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), Roderic I. Pettigrew, Ph.D., MD, who received the Arthur M. Bueche Award for his contributions to technology research, policy, and national and international cooperation. Additionally, Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D., University Professor at the University of Connecticut and former NIBIB Fellow and National Advisory Board Member, received the Simon Ramo Founders Award for his contributions to research and leadership in engineering. The third NAE honoree was Wendy C. Newstetter, Ph.D., who received the Bernard M. Gordon Award for Innovation in Engineering and Technology. Dr. Newstetter received the award along with her colleagues in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Professors Joseph Le Doux and Paul Benkeser. Dr. Newstetter delivered the keynote address at the awards ceremony and described the team’s creation of an innovative biomedical engineering training program to create future leaders in this field.

As director from 2002 to 2017, Dr. Pettigrew launched NIBIB and established its role as the only NIH institute dedicated exclusively to the engineering and physical sciences in biology and medicine. In its first two decades, NIBIB has supported innovative research, such as helping people with paralysis regain function, the development of technologies that enable rapid diagnosis of diseases at the point of care, and wearable imaging devices that are portable and cost a fraction of the cost of previous technology – achievements made possible by the multidisciplinary research approach that defines NIBIB.

Pettigrew is currently the executive director of Engineering Health (EnHealth) and executive dean of Engineering Medicine (EnMed) at Texas A&M and Houston Methodist Hospital, where he leads the nation’s first comprehensive educational and research program to fully integrate engineering into all health-related disciplines. The program seeks to develop “doctors,” a new type of doctor with a bioengineering and invention mindset, trained through a combined exclusively medicine and engineering curriculum.

“We are grateful for the pioneering contributions of Drs. Pettigrew, Laurencin and the Georgia Tech-Emory team,” said Dr. Tromberg, “they have played a critical role in the growth of NIBIB and the entire bioengineering community.”

The annual awards ceremony at the National Academy of Engineering was highly unusual in that, of the 12 broad engineering categories represented at the NAE (from chemical to mechanical and civil to electrical), three 2019 NAE awards were in biomedical engineering. According to NIBIB Director Dr. Bruce Tromberg, “This was an important recognition of the transformative impact and growth of engineering in medicine and biology. Engineering is essential to understanding and improving human health.”

The October 6 event in Washington, DC, honored the founding director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), Roderic I. Pettigrew, Ph.D., MD, who received the Arthur M. Bueche Award for his contributions to technology research, policy, and national and international cooperation. Additionally, Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D., University Professor at the University of Connecticut and former NIBIB Fellow and National Advisory Board Member, received the Simon Ramo Founders Award for his contributions to research and leadership in engineering. The third NAE honoree was Wendy C. Newstetter, Ph.D., who received the Bernard M. Gordon Award for Innovation in Engineering and Technology. Dr. Newstetter received the award along with her colleagues in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Professors Joseph Le Doux and Paul Benkeser. Dr. Newstetter delivered the keynote address at the awards ceremony and described the team’s creation of an innovative biomedical engineering training program to create future leaders in this field.

As director from 2002 to 2017, Dr. Pettigrew launched NIBIB and established its role as the only NIH institute dedicated exclusively to the engineering and physical sciences in biology and medicine. In its first two decades, NIBIB has supported innovative research, such as helping people with paralysis regain function, the development of technologies that enable rapid diagnosis of diseases at the point of care, and wearable imaging devices that are portable and cost a fraction of the cost of previous technology – achievements made possible by the multidisciplinary research approach that defines NIBIB.

Pettigrew is currently the executive director of Engineering Health (EnHealth) and executive dean of Engineering Medicine (EnMed) at Texas A&M and Houston Methodist Hospital, where he leads the nation’s first comprehensive educational and research program to fully integrate engineering into all health-related disciplines. The program seeks to develop “doctors,” a new type of doctor with a bioengineering and invention mindset, trained through a combined exclusively medicine and engineering curriculum.

“We are grateful for the pioneering contributions of Drs. Pettigrew, Laurencin and the Georgia Tech-Emory team,” said Dr. Tromberg, “they have played a critical role in the growth of NIBIB and the entire bioengineering community.”