Twenty-five Years of Biomedical Engineering Excellence

The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering celebrated its 25th anniversary on Nov. 7, 2024, at the Fox Theatre Atlanta. Faculty, staff, donors, community and corporate partners, and other friends of Coulter BME gathered to recognize the Department’s research and academic excellence in advancing biomedical engineering.

“Our journey began with a vision to push the boundaries of biomedical engineering and to create a world-class department from the ground up,” said Alyssa Panitch, Coulter BME chair.

The day began with a special seminar from Sue Van, president and CEO of the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, who shared the story of the department’s namesake, Wallace H. Coulter, a Georgia Tech grad who pioneered a technology that measures the size and count of particles through the detection of changes in electrical resistance. His invention has been transformative in the fields of science, medicine, and technology.

An evening reception featured speakers from both the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University sharing personal memories of the creation of the Department, as well as highlighting the unique partnership between engineering and medical education to foster the next generation of leaders in the biomedical field.

“What are the odds the two different universities, one private, one public, are going to create a joint department with all the different pressures and tensions and government systems and politics, and then 25 years later, this thing is still going and considered one of the best of its kind anywhere in the world. What are the odds?” said Ángel Cabrera, president of Georgia Tech. “It took vision from former presidents, former provosts…former deans who believe that this was possible, who were crazy enough to believe that this would actually last.”

Emory University President Gregory Fenves could not be in attendance, but Provost Ravi Bellamkonda, who previously served as chair of Coulter BME, spoke in his absence and talked about Coulter BME’s position as a leader in merging medicine, engineering, and science to discover and solve pressing health challenges. 

“The beauty and the power of BME is that it's focused on a mission, and it's a noble mission, and it is agnostic to the tools necessary to achieve that mission. That remains, the power, the vitality of BME derived from that notion,” he said. “And I was proud to be a part of that journey, in this department, in my part, and to always be my home.”

Don Giddens, Dean Emeritus of the Georgia Tech College of Engineering and Founding Chair of Coulter BME, shared many memories about the desire to have a department that combined engineering with medicine with a focus on translational research as the impetus for the development of Coulter BME. Giddens mentioned the rapid timeline for pulling together the department in 1997 in a matter of months after gaining commitments from faculty at both Georgia Tech and Emory University to join the program.

“The whole approval process we went through with all the appropriate faculties, committees, academic senates, Board of Regents on the Tech side, Board of Trustees, etc. It was done by September,” he said. “That’s like lightning speed for a university.”

Van reflected on her time as a faculty member in the Department and the relationships she formed with her colleagues as they challenged each other to be innovators.

“Yes, I did challenge everybody, because I had to have the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory be the most successful program in this country,” Van said. “Georgia Tech will always be special because I learned here. I tested things here. I tried things here.”

Panitch highlighted many of the Department’s accolades including research activity doubling since 2019 to over $63 million in 2023; the Coulter BME student population, including nearly 60% of the 1200 undergraduate students being women and 25% coming from underrepresented minority groups; and the recent hires of faculty widely recognized in their fields of study that are spreading their research influence into new areas, like synthetic biology and health equity. 

“As we look to the next 25 years, let's continue to be fearless, collaborative and relentless in our pursuit of excellence, and together, Colter BME will shape the future of biomedical engineering,” she said.