The department provides a nucleus from which to launch powerful teaching and research programs in biomedical engineering. It will help bring faculty and students together and create a unified single high-tech identity to attract the best students. Lowell Goldsmith, dean of the School of Medicine and Dentistry, agrees. This department will strengthen interactions between our Medical Center and River Campus, creating powerful synergies with resulting national impact. The field of biomedical engineering has flourished as engineers continue to discover new ways to use engineering approaches to understand and aid processes within the human body.
Biomedical engineering is the next emerging engineering discipline.
This is a field that is growing enormously, and we're excited to be at the leading edge. Rochester's biomedical engineering program draws on more than three dozen faculty members representing several departments in engineering and medicine. The new department will be the fifth in the engineering school, joining chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, and optics. The knowledge, discovered in studies after World War II when airplanes first flew so high that pilots began to lose consciousness, provides the basis for the teaching of respiratory physiology to medical students around the world. The work opens the door to the development of contrast agents to boost the quality of ultrasound images and makes possible new and sensitive imaging of blood flow throughout the body.