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Robert M. Nerem, MSc, PhD
Georgia Institute of Technology |
Robert M. Nerem, PhD, joined Georgia Tech in 1987 as the Parker H. Petit Distinguished Chair for Engineering in Medicine. He is now an emeritus professor and he serves as the director of the Georgia Tech/Emory Center (GTEC) for Regenerative Medicine, a center established by an NSF Engineering Research Center award in 1998. He also is a part-time Distinguished Visiting Professor at Chonbuk National University in Korea. Until recently he served as the director of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.
Dr. Nerem received his PhD in 1964 from Ohio State University and joined the faculty there in the Department of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, promoted to Professor in 1972 and serving from 1975–1979 as associate dean for research in the graduate school. From 1979 to 1986 he was professor and chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston.
Dr. Nerem is the author of more than 200 publications. He is a past president of the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (1991–1994) and also a past president of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering (1988–1991). In addition, he is a past chairman of the US National Committee on Biomechanics (1988–1991), and he is a fellow and was the founding president (1992–1994) of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). He is past president of the Tissue Engineering Society International (2002–2004), the forerunner of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS), and he was a part-time senior advisor for Bioengineering in the National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health (2003–2006).
Dr. Nerem is fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science; fellow, Council of Arteriosclerosis, American Heart Association; fellow, American Physical Society; and fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He was technical editor of the ASME Journal of Biomechanical Engineering (1988–1997). In 1989 he received the H.R. Lissner Award from ASME and in 2002 the Pierre Galletti Award from AIMBE. In 1988 Dr. Nerem was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and he served on the NAE Council for six years (1998–2004). In 1992 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and in 1998 a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1994 he was elected a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and in 1998 he was made an honorary fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in the United Kingdom. In 2004 he was elected an honorary foreign member of the Japan Society for Medical and Biological Engineering, and in 2006 a foreign member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences. In 2008 Dr. Nerem was selected by NAE for the Founders Award.
Dr. Nerem holds honorary doctorates from the University of Paris, Imperial College London, and Illinois Institute of Technology. Research interests include biomechanics, cardiovascular devices, cellular engineering, vascular biology, and tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.