Comprised of established scientific leaders in the field of biomedical engineering, and representing prominent international institutions, SBME’s EAC provides expert, third-party, evidenced-based input on strategic and operational aspects of the School. They help the school grow, adapt and move forward in pursuit of its five-year goal of becoming the top BME program in Canada, and in the top 10 globally.

Get to know our committee members below!

NEW MEMBERS

Dr. Gina Ogilvie

MD, MSc, FCFP, DrPH
Professor of Medicine, University of British Columbia
Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Global Control of HPV related diseases and prevention
Senior Public Health Scientist, BCCDC
Senior Research Advisor, BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre

Dr. Ogilvie is the principal investigator on over 5 million dollars in research grants and has received funding from PHAC, CIHR, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, Canadian Foundation for Innovation and private foundations. Her research is focused on both the public health and clinical aspects of reproductive health, sexually transmitted infections, HPV screening and the HPV vaccine, and her findings have been highly influential in setting and directing health policy both in Canada and around the world.

She has published over 130 peer reviewed manuscripts and has consulted for national and global institutions.


Dr. Milos Popovic

PhD, PEng
Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto
Senior Scientist, Toronto Rehab Chair in Spinal Cord Injury Research
Research Director, The KITE Research Institute at University Health Network
Institute of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Popovic is the co-founder and director of (i) MyndTec; (ii) the Centre for Advancing Neurotechnological Innovation to Application (CRANIA) at the University Health Network and the University of Toronto; (iii) the CRANIA Neuromodulation Institute at the University of Toronto; and (iv) the Canadian Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation Association.  He is also the founder of the Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute – University Health Network. 

His fields of expertise are functional electrical stimulation, neuroprostheses, neuro-rehabilitation, neuromodulation, brain machine interfaces, physiological control systems, assistive technology, modeling and control of linear and non-linear dynamic systems, robotics, and signal processing.


Dr. Nancy Allbritton

MD, PhD
Professor of Bioengineering, University of Washington
Frank & Julie Jungers Dean UW College of Engineering

Dr. Allbritton joined the University of Washington as the Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of Engineering in November 2019. In this role, she serves as the chief academic officer of the College — a top-15 nationally ranked public university program with annual research expenditures exceeding $159 million — and provides leadership to over 279 faculty and more than 8,000 students.

She is an international expert on multiplexed single-cell assays, microfabricated platforms for high-content cytometry combined with cell sorting, and microengineered stem-cell-based systems for recapitulating human organ-level function. Four companies have been formed based on her research discoveries: Protein Simple (acquired by Bio-Techne in 2014), Intellego, Cell Microsystems, and Altis Biosystems.


RETURNING MEMBERS

Alison Marsden

Dr. Alison Marsden

PhD
Associate Professor, Stanford University
Wall Center Scholar Departments of Pediatrics, Bioengineering, and Mechanical Engineering
Georgia Research Alliance

Alison Marsden is a Professor and Wall Center scholar in the departments of Pediatrics, Bioengineering, and, by courtesy, Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University.

She has published over 120 peer reviewed journal papers, and has received funding from the NSF, NIH, and several private foundations. She is currently on the editorial boards of several leading journals in biomechanics and computational biology. Her work focuses on the development of numerical methods for cardiovascular blood flow simulation, medical device design, application of optimization to large-scale fluid mechanics simulations, and application of engineering tools to impact patient care in cardiovascular surgery and congenital heart disease.


Dr. C. Ross Ethier

PhD (EAC CHAIR)
Professor, Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology & Emory University
Lawrence L. Gellerstedt, Jr. Eminent Scholar in Bioengineering
Georgia Research Alliance

Dr. Ethier is a leading expert in biomechanics – the study of how living cells and tissues respond to mechanical stress – which gives him the upper hand in finding new treatments for glaucoma. Ethier’s glaucoma research is largely aimed at developing a new, mechanically-based strategy to protect fragile neural cells. In osteoarthritis, he is investigating how magneto-mechanical stimulation can give rise to differentiation and (appropriate) proliferation of mesenchymal stem cells.
 
In the lab, Ethier has developed tools to better understand how intraocular pressure is regulated in the eyes of mice. This opens up the possibility of using transgenic models to unravel the molecular mechanisms of pressure mechanotransduction and control in the human eye.


Dr. Douglas Lauffenburger

PhD
Ford Professor of Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Member, The David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Researc
Affiliate, The Ragon Institute of MIT, MGH and Harvard
Member, MIT Center for Gynepathology Research

Dr. Lauffenburger is the Ford Professor of Bioengineering in the Departments of Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Biology at MIT. A central focus of the Lauffenburger research program is systems biology approaches to cell-cell communication and cell signaling important in pathophysiology, with emphasis on translational application to therapeutics discovery and development in cancer, pathogen infection, and inflammatory disease.

More than 130 doctoral students and postdoctoral associates have undertaken research education under his supervision.

He has served as president of the Biomedical Engineering Society, chair of the College of Fellows of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a member of the advisory council for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and a coauthor of the 2009 National Research Council report A New Biology for the 21st Century.

Want to learn more about SBME’s governance and strategic plan?