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2009 Jurors
Members of the MDEA jury are selected each year by a panel of editors from Canon Communications. The jury panel typically encompasses experts from a wide range of healthcare- and design-related fields, including clinical practice, biomedical engineering, human factors, industrial design, manufacturing, and other areas.
When considering juror nominees, Canon’s editors pay particular attention to the need for a balanced, multidisciplinary, and impartial jury. For this reason, jurors cannot be affiliated with a company that is submitting a product for consideration.
MDEA jurors have set a high standard for judging excellence and fair competition. Following are the jurors who will be evaluating entries in the 2009 MDEA competition.
Gail D. Baura—Dr. Baura is a professor at Keck Graduate Institute (KGI), a member of the Claremont Colleges. KGI was the first school to offer a professional science master’s degree, which combines science and engineering with management. Graduates can use the MBS (Masters in Bioscience) degree as a stepping stone to becoming managers in the medical device and pharmaceutical industries. Baura teaches classes in the medical devices and diagnostics track and is one of the nation’s foremost experts on system theory applied to patient monitoring. In her previous position as vice president for research and chief scientist at Cardiodynamics (San Diego), she managed projects that use system theory to improve device performance and invent diagnostic parameters for new markets. She also wrote the first textbook combining system theory and patient monitoring, which reviewed cases applying system theory to various detection and measurement algorithms. A senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), she belongs to IEEE’s Signal Processing Society and Engineers in Medicine and Biology Society. She is an associate editor of IEEE’s Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine and is an ABET program evaluator for bioengineering and biomedical engineering. Baura holds 17 U.S. patents and has another four pending. She also has expertise in insulin metabolism and has published several journal articles on that topic. In her 16-year industrial career, she also worked for Vitalwave Corp. (San Diego), Alaris Medical Systems (San Diego), Cardiotronics Systems Inc. (Carlsbad, CA), IVAC Corp. (San Diego), and AT&T Bell Laboratories (Whippany, NJ). She received her BS in electrical engineering from Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles) in 1984, her MS in biomedical engineering and MS in electrical engineering from Drexel University (Philadelphia) in 1986, and her PhD in bioengineering from the University of Washington (Seattle) in 1993.
Gail D. Baura, PhD, Professor, Keck Graduate Institute, 535 Watson Dr., Claremont, CA 91711
Phone: 909/607-0140; Fax: 909/607-9826; E-mail: gail_baura@kgi.edu.
Yadin B. David—Dr. David is the founder of Biomedical Engineering Consultants LLC, (www.BiomedEng.com) a Houston firm that provides assessment of medical technology management operations, regulatory compliance and forensic engineering services for hospitals and industry worldwide. For the previous 25 years, Dr. David headed the biomedical engineering department and the Center for Telehealth at Texas Children’s Hospital (Houston). In addition to having headed large hospital biomedical engineering departments, he holds academic appointments at the Baylor College of Medicine department of Pediatrics, at the University of Texas, School of Public Health, and is a visiting professor at the Tec de Monterrey school of Medicine in Mexico. Dr. David has been a member of several FDA advisory panels and is the recipient of the FDA commissioner’s special citation. In addition, he also received the 2008 ACCE/AAMI Robert L. Morris Humanitarian Engineering award. He has also served as an adviser to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), and as president of the Center for Telemedicine and eHealth Law (CTeL) both in Washington, DC,. He is a member of the Electrical Safety and EMC committees of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), and of the medical gas delivery equipment committee of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and contributed to the work of the NFPA healthcare facilities technical committee on the safe use of electrical equipment. He is a fellow of the American College of Clinical Engineering (ACCE); a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), for which he serves on the clinical engineering committee; and a fellow and charter member of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). David holds a BSc in electrical engineering, an MSc in biomedical engineering, and an EdD in biomedical engineering education from West Virginia University. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Engineering and Technology, is registered in Texas as a professional engineer, and is certified as a clinical engineer. He is also president emeritus of the nonprofit Healthcare Technology Foundation (www.accefoundation.org). He has published numerous manuscripts and is the editor of Clinical Engineering (CRC Press). His areas of expertise include biomedical engineering, telemedicine, risk mitigation, electromagnetic interference, medical equipment evaluation, and incidents investigation.
Yadin B. David, EdD, Principal, Biomedical Engineering Consultants LLC, 1111 Hermann Dr., Ste. 12-B, Houston, TX 77004
Phone: 713/522-6666; Fax: 713/522-6666; E-mail: david@biomedeng.com.
Prakash Gatta—Dr. Gatta is an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Cincinnati. As a member of the university’s undergraduate biomedical engineering program, he consults with undergraduate teams and guides them in developing new surgical tools for commonly performed procedures.
Gatta is a practicing and board-certified surgeon with a staff appointment in the division of general surgery at the University of Cincinnati’s University Hospital. His clinical focus is esophageal and gastric surgery, with an emphasis on new, minimally invasive approaches to common surgical procedures. He performed the first single-incision laparoscopic cholecystectomy in Cincinnati, and he is the coinventor of and holds a provisional patent on a tool for single-port laparoscopic access. Gatta has been involved in numerous industry-sponsored residency and fellowship courses, as well as courses conducted with the support of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES). He is an active member of the SAGES technology and research committees, the American College of Surgeons, and the Society of International Humanitarian Surgeons.
As a presenter at national and international conferences, Gatta has discussed a range of topics, including robotic versus laparoscopic colectomy, the performance of articulating and conventional laparoscopic instruments, and a new approach to percutaneous transgastric jejunostomy tube placement. His work has appeared in several national publications, including Surgical Endoscopy. He is also the coauthor of “Advanced Techniques in Transanal Endoscopic Microsurgery,” in the forthcoming textbook Transanal Endoscopic Microsurgery, Expanding the Role of Local Excision: Principles and Techniques. Gatta earned his MD from Seth G.S. Medical College at the University of Bombay in 2000. He completed his internship in general surgery at MCP Hahnemann University (Philadelphia) in 2002, followed by his residency in general surgery at the University of Illinois College of Medicine (Peoria) in 2006. In 2007, he undertook a fellowship in minimally invasive and gastrointestinal surgery in the division of minimally invasive surgery at Legacy Health System (Portland, OR). Gatta’s languages include English, Hindi, Telugu, and Arabic. He is an avid runner and skier with a passion for painting, history and traveling.
Prakash Gatta, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery, University of Cincinnati, 231 Albert Sabin Way, SRU Ste. 1466, Cincinnati, OH 45267
Phone: 513/558-4787; Fax: 513/558-3788; E-mail: prakash.gatta@uc.edu.
Warren S. Grundfest—Dr. Grundfest holds appointments at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) as a professor of bioengineering and electrical engineering in the School of Engineering, and a professor of surgery in the School of Medicine. Dr. Grundfest also serves as the Senior West Coast Clinical Advisor and Portfolio Manager for Nanomedicine and Biomaterials for TATRC (the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center of the U.S. Army). He is one of the nation’s foremost experts on medical imaging. His research interests include minimally invasive surgery, microendoscopy, laser technology, biologic spectroscopy, and noninvasive optical diagnostics. Among other positions, he is past president of the International Brain Mapping and Intraoperative Surgical Planning Society, a member of the board of directors of the United Cerebral Palsy foundation, a member of several diagnostic and therapeutic review sections for the National Institutes of Health, a member of review panels for the Institute for Biologic Sciences, and a consultant to the FDA Office of Device Evaluation. Dr. Grundfest has received the Stein-Oppenheimer Award for Cancer Imaging and is a member of the NASA Space Technology Hall of Fame. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the American Institute for Medical and Biologic Engineers, and SPIE. He is a member of the board of directors of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery. He is a member of the American Society of Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons and the Society for Endovascular Surgery and is involved in numerous review, editorial, and program selection activities. He holds 15 patents and has three more pending; has published 204 papers, 46 book chapters, and 218 abstracts; has edited 16 books; and has been involved with a plethora of corporate technology development programs. Dr. Grundfest received his MD from Columbia University (New York City) and his surgical residency training at UCLA and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (both in Los Angeles). Before assuming his latest position at UCLA in 1999, he was a research professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Southern California and director of laser research and technology development at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (both in Los Angeles).
Warren S. Grundfest, MD, Professor of Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering, UCLA School of Engineering, Professor of Surgery, UCLA School of Medicine, 4121H Engr.V, Box 951600, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Phone: 310/794-5550; Fax: 310/794-5956; E-mail: warrenbe@seas.ucla.edu.
Balakrishna Haridas—Dr. Balakrishna Haridas is currently chief technology officer (CTO) of Biomerix Corp., a medical technology company developing products for soft tissue repair and reconstruction using its novel biomaterial platform technology. Dr. Haridas has over 18 years of experience in R&D and commercialization of technologies/products for minimally invasive surgery and soft tissue repair. In the past, Dr. Haridas served as the founder and director of the National Science Foundation Minimally Invasive Medical Technologies Center (MIMTeC- www.mimtec.org) and as an associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at the University of Cincinnati. During his term as a Professor, he also served as the codirector of the Medical Device Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program (www.bme.uc.edu/mdiepAbout.html). Haridas also was president and founder of Device & Implant Innovations LLC (Mason, OH), a consulting company conducting early stage R&D projects for U.S. medical device companies. Before he took these positions, Haridas was a principal and managing partner at Stress Engineering Services Inc. (Mason, OH) and founder and director of its Medical Device Technologies business practice. Haridas is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He has served as associate editor and reviewer for the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering special issue on medical device design, and a reviewer for the Journal of Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology and Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology. Haridas holds several patents, has published a number of peer-reviewed articles, and has given dozens of conference presentations. He holds a BE in civil engineering from Bangalore University (India), an MS in engineering mechanics from the University of Alabama, and a PhD in biomechanics/engineering Mechanics from the University of Cincinnati.
Balakrishna Haridas, PhD, Chief Technology Officer, Biomerix Corp., 47757 Fremont Blvd., Fremont, CA 94538
Phone: 510/933-1228; Fax: 510/556-3450; E-mail: bharidas@biomerix.com.
William A. Hyman—Dr. Hyman is a professor of biomedical engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU; College Station, TX). Hyman holds an ScD in engineering mechanics and an MS in engineering mechanics from Columbia University, and a BSME in mechanical engineering from The Cooper Union. He has served as a consultant for FDA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Army, the General Accounting Office [now known as the Government Accountability Office], medical device companies, and in patent and personal-injury litigation. Among Hyman’s honors are a National Defense Education Act fellowship in biomechanics, the Sony award lectureship of the Society for Engineering in Urology, the Lockheed Martin award for excellence in engineering teaching, and the college Charles W Crawford service award. He holds memberships in the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), the American College of Clinical Engineering (ACCE), the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society technical group on medical systems and functionally impaired populations. Hyman is an editor of the Journal of Clinical Engineering. He also serves on the ASTM committee on surgical implants and medical devices and is an executive board member of the ACCE Healthcare Technology Foundation. He is a member of the Dallas region FDA-Industry Coalition. Dr. Hyman is a registered professional engineer in Texas.
William A. Hyman, ScD, MS, PE, Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Texas A&M University, 3120 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-3120
Phone: 979/845-5593, Fax: 979/845-4450, E-mail: w-hyman@tamu.edu.
Denise M. Korniewicz—Dr. Korniewicz is a professor and senior associate dean for research at the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies (Miami), where she also serves as director of the nursing school’s research center. Her chief areas of expertise and responsibility include research, grant development, graduate student mentoring, and assistance to medical device companies in the development of patient-safety equipment. After earning nursing degrees at Madonna University (BS), Texas Woman’s University (MS), and the Catholic University of America (PhD), Korniewicz did postdoctoral work in infection prevention at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. She gained experience in the management of critical care patients as an emergency room charge nurse before undertaking an academic career that has included professorships at the University of Maryland Schools of Nursing & Medicine, Georgetown University schools of nursing & medicine and the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. Her practical nursing experience began in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, which she left with the rank of captain. An author and coauthor of several books and articles, Korniewicz has also conducted a small research consulting business. She is a registered nurse in Maryland; Washington, DC; and Florida and holds a certificate in executive management in higher education from Carnegie-Mellon University.
Denise M. Korniewicz, RN, PhD., Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Research, University of Miami School of Nursing, 20810 S.W. 86th Pl. Cutler Bay, FL 33189
Phone: 305/284-8347; Fax: 305/284-4370; E-mail: dkorniewicz@miami.edu.
Richard Meyst—Mr. Meyst is president and CEO of Fallbrook Engineering Inc. (Escondido, CA), a contract product development, management, and engineering services consulting firm specializing in healthcare products. Meyst is an accomplished mechanical engineer and developer of a wide range of products for the healthcare and consumer products industries. He has over 30 years experience in roles ranging from R&D researcher to program manager. He is an expert in project management, product conception, design and development, product prototyping, design and process validation, production startup, cost reduction and manufacturing engineering.
In his career, he has been associated with many of the premier medical device manufacturers. He has been heavily involved with the development of high-volume sterile disposables using a wide range of polymers. Products he has designed have utilized manufacturing technologies such as injection molding, transfer molding, extrusion, solvent bonding, sonic welding, adhesive bonding, and many others. Product lines have included catheters of many types, blood filters, IV and blood sets, bioreactors and solution containers, implantables, DNA amplifiers, medical lasers, surgical instruments, therapeutic and diagnostic devices, hospital thermometers, fluid by-pass circuits, electromechanical and electronic instruments as well as stem-cell harvesting and cell expansion systems. He has had diverse program management and line responsibilities. While at one company he headed up the disposable design group, ran the pilot production facility for IV sets and infusion pumps and managed the IV disposables custom product line. Mr. Meyst is currently principal investigator on an NIH SBIR grant developing a device for the improved collection of cord blood stem cells. Mr. Meyst is a senior member of the Society of Plastics Engineers/Medical Plastics Division (SPE) and has served on the Divisional Board of Directors. He is an expert in the TELTECH Network and is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) and the American Filtration Society. Mr. Meyst earned his BS and MS in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has published technical papers, presented at industry meetings, holds thirteen US Patents, and has been consulting to industry for over 20 years.
Richard Meyst, President and CEO, Fallbrook Engineering Inc., 355 W. Grand Ave., Ste. 4, Escondido, CA 92025
Phone: 760/489-5400; Fax: 760/489-5412; Email: dickm@fallbrook-eng.com.
Mary Beth Privitera—Ms. Privitera is the director in the Medical Device Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Cincinnati. The program partners multidisciplinary student teams with physician innovators, and focuses on translating research efforts into viable product development opportunities. To date, the program has demonstrated results for clinical specialists in vascular surgery, interventional radiology, general surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, emergency medicine, pulmonary care, rehabilitative medicine, and neurology. The program convenes students from the industrial design, biomedical engineering, and business fields and enables them to learn about the other disciplines while conducting early-stage development of regulated medical products. Privitera is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and an adjunct instructor of industrial design with research focus in the ergonomics of catheter based interventions. An expert in the application of human factors in medical product design, she has also worked in the medical device industry since 1988. Privitera is currently a principal of Privitera Design (Cincinnati), an international design firm. She currently serves as a vice president of education for the Industrial Designers Society of America and previously served as a member of its national educational council. She is also a member of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation Human Factors Committee and has coauthored various sections in HE 75. In addition, she belongs to the American Society of Engineering Educators, the Product Development and Management Association, and the Design Management Institute. She has been associated with more than 40 product releases, holds several patents and provisional patents, and has published and lectured on a variety of topics including transdisciplinary or collaborative design, innovation methodology, and surgical techniques. Privitera received her BS in industrial design from the University of Cincinnati in 1985 and her Master of Design from the University of Cincinnati in 1995.
Mary Beth Privitera, M. of Design, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Medical Device Innovation & Entrepreneurship Program, University of Cincinnati, 2901 Campus Dr., Rm. 858, Cincinnati, OH 45221
Phone: 513/258-5824; Fax 513/556-4162; E-mail: mary.privitera@uc.edu.
Molly Follette Story, PhD—Dr. Story is president of Human Spectrum Design LLC.
Story is an expert in universal design of products and in accessibility and usability of medical instrumentation. She was coeditor of, Medical Instrumentation: Accessibility and Usability Considerations (CRC Press, 2007). She also coordinated development of and coauthored the Principles of Universal Design, and coauthored with James L. Mueller and the late Ronald L. Mace, The Universal Design File: Designing for People of All Ages and Abilities(North Carolina State University, 1998). She was granted six utility patents and has served as a consultant to companies including Kaiser Permanente, Sunrise Medical, Abbott Labs, Midmark Corporation, Maytag Corporation, and MasterCard Worldwide. Story is a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA), and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). She is also a member of AAMI’s Human Factors Engineering Committee, which is developing the forthcoming AAMI HE75 standard, Human Factors Design Guidelines for Medical Devices. Molly has degrees from Princeton University (B.S.E.), Stanford University (M.S.) and University of California, Berkeley (M.S. and Ph.D.).
Molly Follette Story, President, PhD, Human Spectrum Design LLC, 3717 Deauville Pl., Santa Rosa, CA 95403-0980
Phone: 707/578-6839; Fax: 707/578-9435; E-mail: molly@humanspectrumdesign.com.
Mark S. Vreeke—Dr. Vreeke is a senior partner at Rational Systems LLC (Houston), a business process and technical consulting firm. Rational Systems provides a consulting service that combines the business knowledge necessary to extract maximum value from a company’s assets and the technical capabilities to implement IT and infrastructure changes to support any business redesign. While at Rational Systems, Vreeke has been the lead consultant on multiple IVD projects ranging from blood glucose monitors to multianalyte clinical analyzers. In a related position, Vreeke is serving as vice president of R&D for Rational Biotechnology, a spin-off of Rational Systems, whose goal is to speed the adoption of personalized medicine through the development of combined IVD and drug therapy products. In 2007 Dr. Vreeke started TransAtlantic Science to commercialize the Lactate EDGE a sports exercise monitor. The company has subsequently moved into the contract research arena specializing in glucose monitoring. The company has also initiated an internal effort in diabetes control. The approach is a based on a fundamental shift from the closed loop active feedback methods presently available to a passive approach that minimizes glucose excursions. Before forming Rational Systems and TransAtlantic Science, Vreeke was a senior research scientist at Bayer Corp. (Elkhart, IN), where he was responsible for new reagent development in Bayer’s self-testing segment and coordinated efforts to incorporate new reagents into a next-generation sensor platform. He has also held research positions at SpectRx, and TheraSense Inc. He graduated from Calvin College with a BS in chemistry and went on to receive a PhD in analytical chemistry from the University of Texas. He is currently a member of the editorial advisory board of IVD Technology and is a visiting professor in the chemical engineering department at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Terragona, Spain). He has 20 peer reviewed publications and 24 issued U.S. patents.
Mark S. Vreeke, PhD, Senior Partner, Rational Systems LLC, 11 Greenway Plz., Ste. 543, Houston, TX 77046
Phone: 832/752-2915; E-mail: mark.vreeke@rationalsystems.com.
Stephen B. Wilcox—Dr. Wilcox is a principal and the founder of Design Science (Philadelphia), a 20-person firm that specializes in optimizing the human interface of products—particularly medical products. Wilcox is a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America’s (IDSA) Academy of Fellows. He has served as a vice president and member of the IDSA Board of Directors, and, until recently, was chair of the IDSA Human Factors Professional Interest Section. He also serves on the human engineering committee of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), which has produced the HE 74 Human Factors standard for medical devices and the forthcoming HE 75. Wilcox holds a BS in psychology and anthropology from Tulane University, a PhD in experimental psychology from Penn State, and a certificate in business administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Wilcox chaired the 2000 “Design Gumbo” IDSA national conference in New Orleans and is one of the chairs of the upcoming Include 09 conference on inclusive design at the Royal College of Art in London. He has won design awards from IDSA and from International Design magazine, has guest edited the journal Innovation, and has served as judge for a number of product design awards competitions. He has given many invited addresses to various organizations and has published more than 60 articles in professional journals. He also serves on the editorial board of Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry magazine, which included him in its 2004 list of the 100 notable people in the medical device industry. His book, Designing Usaility into Medical Devices, coauthored with Michael Wiklund, was published in 2005.
Stephen B. Wilcox, PhD, FIDSA, Principal, Design Science Consulting Inc., 924 Cherry St., Fl. 1, Philadelphia, PA, 19107-2405
Phone: 215/627-4122; Fax: 215/627-4335; E-mail: sbw@dscience.com.