Biomedical Engineering Professor Named AIMBE Fellow

Feb. 28, 2005 - The Henry Samueli School of Engineering at UC Irvine is pleased to announce that Zhongping Chen, Ph.D., professor of biomedical engineering, has been elected Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) for "outstanding contributions and leadership in the fields of biophotonics and optical imaging." Professor Chen was inducted in an official ceremony held on Feb. 17, 2005 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.

AIMBE's mission is to provide a unifying voice and force to ensure that society benefits optimally from medical and biological engineering. AIMBE Fellows represent members of the bioengineering community that have made significant and leading contributions to their discipline in science and education. The number of Fellows is limited to the top 2 percent of the total number of individuals active in medical and biological engineering. Conferral of this honor signifies recognition of Professor Chen's many distinguished contributions to the field as well as his demonstrated interest, concern and involvement in critical issues affecting medical and biological engineering.

Professor Chen's research is focused on biomedical imaging, biophotonics, biosensors, and biotechnology. He is a leading researcher in the area of functional optical coherence tomography (OCT), a noninvasive imaging modality that provides three-dimensional imaging of tissue structure and physiology with micrometer resolution. Chen's group was credited for the development of Doppler OCT and second harmonics OCT. The tomographic imaging technologies developed in Chen's OCT Laboratory have made significant improvements in many clinical OCT applications, including burn depth determination, diabetic retinopathy evaluation, and cancer diagnosis.