Bioengineering

The Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering

Research

Research Opportunities

Research related to bioengineering is being conducted by many Schools, Departments, and Centers under a variety of headings. Some of the research targets basic understanding, and some aims to develop improved diagnostic and therapeutic tools for clinical use. Activities range from making new measurements to computer-aided analysis of existing data.

Opportunities for collaboration abound within the university and with outside institutions. Some examples include:

  • Krasnow Institute Advanced Study. Research at Krasnow focuses on the understanding of the brain and mind, with the eventual goal of enhancing mental health and combating neurological disease. The approach is highly interdisciplinary, and includes physicists, engineers, neurobiologists, mathematicians, cognitive psychologists, and computer scientists. A new 3T MRI imager is dedicated solely to brain research.

  • College of Health and Human Services. This is a new and rapidly growing school with a strong dedication to interdisciplinary approaches. Its Center for the Study of Chronic Illness and Disability, for example, has developed in-depth collaboration with engineers at GMU, as well as with clinical scientists at the INOVA Health Center and the National Institutes of Health.

  • The Volgenau School and the College of Science. Opportunities for joint research are increasing. These include a new grant program by the College of Science to develop joint research, and by the two schools' collaboration to introduce a bioinformatics component into research and education at the Volgenau School.

  • Department of Psychology. The Arch laboratory conducts research on basic and applied aspects of human cognition and brain function. It focuses on basic studies of attention, memory, language, audition and vision in healthy young and older populations. The facilities include 128-channel EEG, and transcranial magnetic stimulator.

  • INOVA. The INOVA Health Center is a tertiary clinical facility a few miles from GMU. Both institutions encourage collaboration, and there are numerous current and planned collaborative projects. Joint research conferences demonstrate growing interactions.

  • Federal laboratories. Faculty members in the Volgenau School has had long-standing interactions with federal laboratories, such as the Naval Research Laboratory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The proximity of such laboratories, and their increased interest in biological problems, provide research opportunities in bioengineering.

Examples of Research Areas

The following list gives examples of ongoing research activities. It is not meant to be all-inclusive.