Letter from the Chair
Greetings! We are happy that you are interested in learning more about bioengineering and about our Department.
Bioengineering is a field that has, from its origins, been multidisciplinary and highly diverse — it is constantly reinventing itself. My own view is that bioengineering is the space between medicine and the physical sciences, and between basic physiology and applied research in engineering. We have always been a home for mavericks who didn’t quite fit into the confines of more traditional (and static) disciplines. Given trends in all of the bordering disciplines, I’m certain that Bioengineering will become the central discipline for moving science, engineering, and medicine forward in the 21st century. These are exciting times to be a bioengineer!
And it's a particularly good time to be a bioengineer here. Situated in Seattle, a vibrant city on spectacular Puget Sound, the University of Washington is one of the largest and most prestigious research universities in the United States, with top-ranked departments across campus in many disciplines. One of our greatest advantages is that Bio
engineering was equally grounded in the School of Medicine and the College of Engineering at its founding in 1967 by Dr. Robert Rushmer, and remains a joint enterprise of both schools today. Under the inspired leadership of Chairs Rushmer, James Bassingthwaighte, Lee Huntsman and Yongmin Kim, the Department of Bioengineering has grown in size, complexity, funding, and stature.
Today, we are large and growing; as I write we are an organism consisting of 44 active core faculty (9 more than when I moved into the Chair’s office in 2007), 46 adjunct faculty (who can also mentor our graduate students), 46 affiliate faculty, 125 graduate students, 153 undergraduate students, 55 postdoctoral fellows and over 80 staff members.
For decades our graduate students and postdoctoral fellows have gone on to become world leaders in academia, industry, and government; for this we have been long recognized as among the handful of top programs in the world. In the last decade, we put in place a College-of-Engineering-based undergraduate program that incorporates both design and 100% participation in a significant laboratory work. In 2008 the undergraduate program was accredited by ABET, and is also now among the handful of top BME programs. Our students are remarkably bright and hard-working, and they win a proportionately large number of local and national scholarships and awards--just this year, our senior cohort includes our first Rhodes Scholar, along with two Goldwater scholars.
Our equal footing in the School of Medicine and the College of Engineering allows us to garner very strong research support from federal agencies, particularly from NIH. The research ranges from basic studies of physiology and biophysics, to applied work aimed at near-term clinical applications; these two extremes inform and complement each other in a very productive way.
We have a long and deep tradition of translating research into patents, licenses, start-up companies, and products with significant impact on health continues. Spurred on by funding under the Coulter Translational Research Partnerships, we have embarked on building closer ties to off-campus partners in the public and private sector who share our commitment to improving health. This year (2011) we launched the Bioengineering Affiliates Program—a way to engage more closely in a two-way dialogue with those non-federal partners in the Seattle area and the world. We will be building that program over the next few years.
Strong external partnerships exist with many other departments in the College of Engineering and the School of Medicine, and with the Center for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound (CIMU) at the Applied Physics Laboratory, Seattle Children’s and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
As we move into the second decade of the 21st century, we are poised to build on our historical disciplinary strengths, and to increase our presence in exciting new areas of research. This is based in part on strong ties being formed between our department at other entities on campus and in the Seattle area. New alliances (with the UW Department of Global Health, the UW Department Physics, the UW Institute for Molecular Science and Engineering, UW’s NSF Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering, and with Seattle’s nonprofit PATH) are strengthening our program. As I update this letter, we are particularly excited by our new graduate educational track in imaging, and formation of a new UW interdisciplinary center in synthetic biology.
Explore our faculty and research sections to find more about our research work.
With strong research programs and funding, and innovative partnerships, the Department of Bioengineering is an exciting place to be as a student, or a member of the staff (and certainly as a member of the faculty!). New discoveries in many fields are advancing our scientific knowledge. Technologies arising from rapidly advancing multidisciplinary endeavors are already revolutionizing the healthcare system, and our faculty, students and alumni are helping to make it happen.
The Department of Bioengineering is committed to training a cadre of interdisciplinary professionals who will be equipped with the skills to become the leaders of science, engineering and medicine.
If you have questions (and I hope you do), you should begin by exploring our website further. We’ve put a lot of information about us within a few clicks. Next, contact us. We’ll be happy to discuss your questions with you. Thanks again for your interest!
— Paul Yager, Ph.D.
Professor and W. Hunter and Dorothy L. Simpson Endowed Chair
