Dr. Yasemin M. Akay is currently an Intructional and Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston. She received her B.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey in 1980 and M.S. and Ph.D in Biomedical Engineering from the Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA in 1991 and 1998, respectively.

She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Physiology and Pharmacology Departments, Dartmouth Medical School and at the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Boston University, School of Medicine. She was also an assistant editor for the IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Book Series from September 2001 to May 2004 and managing editor for the Wiley Encyclopedia of Biomedical Engineering from May 2004 till present. Her current research interests include Molecular Neuroengineering, Neural Growth and Neurodegeneration.

Prof. Yasemin P. Kahya received the B.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering and in Physics from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, with highest honors in 1980, M.S. degree in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University, Connecticut, USA, in 1981 and Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Bogazici University in 1987.

She has been teaching ever since in the Department of Electric and Electronic Engineering at Bogazici University. Her current research interests are in the areas of biomedical instrumentation, respiratory acoustics and biomedical signal processing applications. She was the program co-chair of IEEE-EMBS 2001 Conference which was held in Istanbul.

Prof. H. Ozcan Gulcur received the B.Sc. and the M.Sc. Degrees in electrical engineering from the Middle East Technical University,Ankara, Turkey, in 1968 and 1970, respectively and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 1973.

He is presently associate professor and associate director of the Biomedical, Engineering Institute at the Bogazici University. His research interests include neural networks, physiological system modeling, biological signal processing, medical instrumentation systems, event related brain potentials, passive acoustic imaging, artificial intelligence, nonlinear control.

Ms. Allyson Plosko received her BS in Psychology from Tulane University in 2010. From August 2010 - November 2011, she participated in a research internship at Rice University and in 2012 joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Houston as the Undergraduate Advisor. She is now the Department's Initiative and Outreach Officer.

Dr. Andrei Dragomir received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Politehnica University, Bucharest, Romania in 1999 and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Patras, Greece in 2002 and 2006, respectively.

Andrei joined the Harrington Department of Bioengineering at Arizona State University as a postdoctoral researcher in December 2006 and is now an Instructional and Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston.

'Jack' Hoang Lu is currently pursuing a PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University, where he is conducting protein engineering and synthetic biology research in Professor A. James Link’s laboratory. He has received a MSE in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University. He is also pursuing a graduate certificate in science policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and has a minor in East Asian Studies. Outside of lab, he enjoys helping others cook, eating, tree climbing, and engaging in other fun expeditions.

Luvena Ong is currently a PhD candidate in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. She is conducting research in DNA nanotechnology under the guidance of Peng Yin. Outside of lab, she enjoys cooking, feeding others, climbing trees, and engaging in other fun expeditions.

Kristen Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University in New York City. She received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 2009. After an engineering co-op experience with St. Jude Medical in Los Angeles, she began her graduate studies at Columbia and joined the Cell and Molecular Biomechanical Lab led by Dr. Christopher Jacobs. Her research interests include bone mechanobiology and mechanisms of mechanotransduction in bone cells that are mediated by the primary cilium. Besides research, she has been active in Columbia’s GradSWE, BioBus, and the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Community Engagement.

Ming Jack Po is a MD / PhD student at Columbia University. Jack started his entrepreneurial journey in the late 1990's as a high school student at Stuyvesant High School. He co-founded and led the technology team at a venture backed startup before being recruited to Wall Street by quantitative hedge fund D. E. Shaw & Co. Since that time, Jack has expanded his entrepreneurial activities outside of internet technology into medical devices. Jack is a 2011 Global Shapers at the World Economics Forum, a 2011 InSITE fellow, a 2011 Fellow in the Startup Leadership Program in New York, and currently serves on the board of several companies and non-profit organizations.