Mark Anastasio, PhD, has been named interim chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science.
Anastasio, professor of biomedical engineering, succeeds Frank Yin, MD, PhD, the Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, who stepped down as chair in May after leading the department for more than 15 years.
A search committee, led by Philip Stahl, PhD, professor of cell biology and physiology at the School of Medicine, will continue to identify candidates from within Washington University as well as national and international candidates.
“Mark is a well-respected and prolific member of our faculty and has excellent relationships with colleagues throughout the engineering and medical schools,” said Ralph S. Quatrano, PhD, dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science and the Spencer T. Olin Professor. “I’m very pleased that Mark has accepted this role to lead the department during the interim period.”
With funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation (NSF), Anastasio heads the Computational Bioimaging Laboratory, which researches computational and theoretical image science and pursues emerging bioimaging methods, both at the School of Engineering & Applied Science and at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at the School of Medicine. His research focuses on developing novel biomedical imaging methods and image reconstruction to meet important needs in clinical medicine and basic biomedical research, such as improved imaging methods for the early detection and management of cancer, vascular diseases, brain injuries and characterization of biomaterials.
Anastasio joined the Washington University faculty in January 2011 from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He earned a doctorate in medical physics from the University of Chicago, master’s degrees from the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor’s degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Anastasio serves on editorial boards for three leading bioimagingjournals — Medical Physics, Journal of Biomedical Optics and Photoacoustics — and has more than 88 peer-reviewed journal articles. He has received several honors and awards, including the NSF’s prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award.
The School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis focuses intellectual efforts through a new convergence paradigm and builds on strengths, particularly as applied to medicine and health, energy and environment, entrepreneurship and security. With 82 tenured/tenure-track and 40 additional full-time faculty, 1,300 undergraduate students, 700 graduate students and more than 23,000 alumni, we are working to leverage our partnerships with academic and industry partners — across disciplines and across the world — to contribute to solving the greatest global challenges of the 21st century.