The BME Distinguished Seminar Series
The BME Distinguished Seminar Series enables the Duke community to engage with cutting-edge research through a series of invited talks by renowned academics and industry leaders
Meet Our Speakers
Fall 2026
Ada Cavalcanti-Adam
Research Group Leader and Department Leader
Max Planck Institute
Professor and Chair of Biomechanics
University of Bayreuth
December 10th, 2026 from 3:00 to 5:00pm
Jenny Amos
Teaching Professor and Faculty Fellow of Bioengineering
University of Illinois – UC
November 12th, 2026 from 3:00 to 5:00pm
Marom Bikson
Professor of Biomedical Engineering
City College of New York
October 29th, 2026 from 3:00 to 5:00pm
James Duncan
Ebenezer K. Hunt Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging
Yale University
October 8th, 2026 from 3:00 to 5:00pm
Spring 2026
Claudia Fischbach-Teschl
James M. and Marsha McCormick Family Director of the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, Stanley Bryer 1946 Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Cornell University
“ECM Biophysics and Cancer: Mechanisms, Models, and Therapeutic Insights”
April 16th, 2026 from 3:00 to 5:00pm
Rita Strack
Chief Editor of Nature, Biomedical Engineering
Springer Nature
“Publishing in Nature Biomedical Engineering”
April 2nd, 2026 from 3:00 to 5:00pm
Christine Schmidt
Distinguished Professor and J. Crayton Pruitt Family Endowed Chair J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering
University of Florida
“Engineering Materials for Clinical Nerve Repair, and Other Applications Along the Way”
March 5th, 2026 from 3:00 to 5:00pm
Dean’s Distinguished Lecturer in Honor of Joe Izzat
Fall 2025
David Mooney
Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering
Harvard University
“Matrix Viscoelasticity: Control of Cell Fate to Medical Adhesives”
Steven Chu
William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Physics, Molecular and Cellular Physiology, and Energy Science and Engineering
Stanford University
“What can be learned by tracking the motion of cargos. due to dynein in live cells with millisecond and microsecond time resolution and sub-nanometer spatial resolution?”
Darrell Irvine
Professor of Immunology & Microbiology, Investigator
the Scripps Research Institute & Howard Hughes Medical Institute
September 11, 2025 from 3:00-5:00 PM
Karin Jensen
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
University of Michigan
September 25, 2025 from 3:00-5:00 PM
Mikhail Shapiro
Max Delbrück Professor of Chemical Engineering and Medical Engineering, Director of the Center for Molecular and Cellular Medicine
Caltech
October 30, 2025 from 3:00-5:00 PM
Inaugural recipient of the Izatt Memorial Lectureship
