- Professor and Head, Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University

Research:
Dr. Wodicka's research includes biomedical acoustics, biomedical signal processing, and medical instrumentation.

Career Highlights:
Dr. Wodicka received a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1982, a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and a PhD in medical engineering and medical physics from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology in 1989. After graduating from HST, Dr. Wodicka joined the faculty of the School of Engineering and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. His teaching excellence was recognized through numerous awards such as the Ruth and Joel Spira Outstanding teacher Award in 1991, the Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teacher award in in 1992, the Honeywell Excellence in Teaching Award in 1994 and more.

Dr. Wodicka's research focuses in biomedical acoustics and has led to novel and cost-effective technologies to guide the placement of catheters and tubes inside airways, to detect and monitor lung disease at early stage in infants and children, to non-invasively assess the pathological effects of head trauma, and to monitor the well being of the growing fetus.

In 1996 Dr. Wodicka was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to return to Boston and continue his investigations. Dr. Wodicka returned to academia and established an inter-university biomedical engineering program modeled after HST that combined Purdue's excellence in engineering with Indiana University's outstanding medical and life sciences programs. Subsequent to this initiative, Dr. Wodicka was named head of Purdue's new Department of Biomedical Engineering -- the first new department in the schools of engineering in more than 40 years. Currently construction is nearing completion on a new $25 million facility that will enable Purdue to expand the current Department of Biomedical Engineering into a full-fledged school and create the state's first undergraduate program in biomedical engineering at a public university.