Buddy D. Ratner, Michael L. and Myrna Darland Endowed Chair in Bioengineering and Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Washington, received his Ph.D. (1972) in polymer chemistry from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. From 1985-1996 he directed the NIH-funded National ESCA and Surface Analysis Center for Biomedical Problems (NESAC/BIO), and in 1996 he assumed the directorship of University of Washington Engineered Biomaterials (UWEB), an NSF Engineering Research Center. He is the editor of the Journal of Undergraduate Research in Bioengineering, a past president of the Society for Biomaterials and author of 400 scholarly works. Ratner is a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the American Vacuum Society and a Fellow, Biomaterials Science and Engineering (FBSE). He served as president of AIMBE, 2002-2003. He is vice president of the Tissue Engineering Society International (TESI) 2003-2005. In 2002 Ratner was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering, USA, and in 2004 he won the Founder's Award for the Society For Biomaterials. His research interests include biomaterials, tissue engineering, polymers, biocompatibility, surface analysis of organic materials, self-assembly, nanobiotechnology and RF-plasma thin film deposition. Summary of Buddy Ratner's awards and honors: 1989 Clemson Award for Contributions to the Biomaterials Literature 1990 Burlington Resources Foundation Faculty Achievement Award for Outstanding Research 1991 Perkin-Elmer Physical Electronics Award for Excellence in Surface Science 1991-1992 President, Society For Biomaterials 1993 Founding Fellow, American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) 1993 Fellow, American Vacuum Society; Vice President, AIMBE 1993 Fellow, Society For Biomaterials; Van Ness Lecturer, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1998 C.M.A. Stine Award in Materials Science (AIChE); American Vacuu Professor Hoffman studied at M.I.T., where he received B.S., M.S., and Sc.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering between 1953 and 1957. He taught on the faculty of M.I.T. Chemical Engineering Department for a total of ten years. He also spent four years in industry. Since 1970 he has been Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. Professor Hoffman has over 330 publications, several books and chapters, 21 patents and several other patents pending. He is on the Editorial Boards of seven scientific journals. Summary of professional activities and awards include: .President, Society for Biomaterials, 1983-1984 .Clemson Award in Biomaterials, 1984 .Board of Governors, Controlled Release Society, 1991-1994 .Biomaterials Science Prize, Japanese Biomaterials Society, 1990 .Founders' Award of the Society for Biomaterials, 2000 .Election to the National Academy of Engineering, 2005 In December, 1992, Hoffman's colleagues organized a symposium in Maui, Hawaii in honor of his 60th birthday. In December, 2002 his 70th birthday was celebrated at another special symposium, once again in Maui, Hawaii. Papers from the first symposium were published in the Journal of Biomaterials Science (Polymer Edition), along with a Festschrift book, and similar publications are in press at this time from the second symposium. Frederick J. Schoen is Professor of Pathology and Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Medical School; Director of Cardiac Pathology and Executive Vice-Chairman in the Department of Pathology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in Boston. Schoen received a B.S.E. (Materials and Metallurgical Engineering) from the University of Michigan (1966), a Ph.D. in Materials Science from Cornell University (1970) and an M.D. from the University of Miami School of Medicine (1974). Following a Surgery internship followed by residency in Anatomic Pathology and fellowship in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Pathology at the University of Florida, he joined BWH in 1980. Schoen has focused his research career on tissue-biomaterial interactions, structure-function-pathology correlations in the native heart valves, heart valve substitutes and other cardiovascular prostheses, calcification of bioprosthetic tissues, heart transplantation, and cardiovascular applications of tissue engineering. Schoen has leadership responsibilities in academic programs in the Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST); he currently chairs the HST Faculty Appointments Committee and the Graduate (Curriculum) Committee, and is an active teacher of courses in pathology, cardiovascular pathology, and biomaterials and tissue engineering. He chairs the BWH Education Committee. Schoen is author or co-author of approximately 375 manuscripts in journals and books. He authored Interventional and Surgical Cardiovascular Pathology: Clinical Correlations and Basic Principles (1989); and was Co-Editor of Biomaterials Science: An Introduction to Materials in Medicine (1st Edition 1996, 2nd Edition 2004), and Silver's Cardiovascular Pathology, 3rd Edition (2001). He is Past-President of the Society For Biomaterials (SFB) and the Society for Cardiovascular Pathology, and was Founding Fellow of the American In Orjan Martinsen is a leader in the field of bioimpedance and bioelectricity. He has been appointed, along with Sverre Grimnes, to arrange the next international conference on bioimpedance in Spring of 2001. Background: . Educator and scientist at USUHS since 1982 . Co-founder and director of USUHS's first patient simulation facility and simulation-based educational and research programs, 1997; . Consultant to world-wide DoD clinical education community for simulation facility creation and program development, 1998 - present; . Reviewer on simulation, WMD preparedness and adult education for the Journal of American Medical Association and for the American Journal of Infection Control, 2005 Memberships: Society for Medical Simulation (SocMedSim)- Development and Research Committee; Society for Education in Anesthesia (SEA); Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM); Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Bernhard Preim is Professor of Visualization in the Computer Science Department of the U of Magdeburg. He has given many tutorials on medical visualization at IEEE Visualization, Eurographics, EuroVis and Computer-Assisted Radiology and Surgery. He was founder of the German "Visual Computing in Medicine" group which has held two yearly workshops since 2003. Together with Charl Botha (Delft), he initiated the Eurographics Workshop series on "Visual Computing in Biology and Medicine". Bernhard now heads the VCBM steering committee. Currently, Bernhard and Charl serve as editors for a special issue on "Visual Computing in Biology and Medicine" in the journal "Computers and Graphics". Recently, Bernhard Preim was invited to serve as associate editor of the premium journal IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. Bernhard is regularly Visiting Professor at Fraunhofer MEVIS and heads the scientific advisory board of ICCAS (Innovation Center Computer Assisted Surgery). In the German Society for Computer-Assisted Surgery he has been board member since 2007 and first Vice-President since 2009. Dirk Barz was Professor for Computer-Aided Surgery at the U of Leipzig. He was also member of the executive committee of the IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee. He received the NDI Young Investigator Award for his work on virtual endoscopy and intra-operative navigation. Sverre Grimnes is a leader in the field of bioimpedance and bioelectricity. He has been chosen President of the International Committee for the Promotion of Research in bioimpedance. He has been appointed, along with Orjan Martinsen, to arrange the next international conference on bioimpedance in Spring of 2001. Dan Vallero is an internationally recognized expert in the transport, chemical transformation and environmental fate of hazardous pollutants. His three decades of professional experience in hazardous waste engineering and management have included research, teaching and regulatory advice related to a wide range of human health risk and ecological issues, from global climate change to the release of hazardous products of incomplete combustion from waste incinerators to the assessment of the risks from exposures to environmental endocrine disruptors. Dr. Vallero recently established the Engineering Ethics program at Duke University. This innovative program introduces students to the complex relationships between science, technology and societal demands on the engineer. The lessons learned from the cases in this book are a fundamental part of Duke's preparation of its future engineers to address the ethical dilemmas likely to be encountered during the careers of the next generation engineers. Reinaldo Perez is Senior Engineer and Member of the Technical Staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. For the past three years, Dr. Perez has also been working with Lockheed Martin Astronautics (LMA) on the Mars Surveyor series. His primary work has been as a designer of spacecraft (or satellite) subsystems and ground support hardware for increased reliability in space environments, focusing on wireless communications hardware with built-in immunity to many kinds of noise and interference problems. He is a senior member of the IEEE, AIAA, and AIP, and serves as a board member of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES). In addition, Dr. Perez is an associate editor of the IEEE EMCS Journal, as well as Editor of the ACES Newsletter. Isaac Bankman is affiliated with Johns Hopkins University Stanley Dunn is the Paul S. and Mary W. Monroe Faculty Scholar and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers University and Professor of Pediatrics at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. In addition, he holds graduate faculty appointments in Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rutgers. He has served as Graduate Program Director, Undergraduate Program Director, and Department Chair in Biomedical Engineering and currently serves as Associate Dean in the School of Engineering. A Fellow of AIMBE, his research interests are in localized tomography, pediatric neuroimaging, inverse problems and subspace projection methods and their application. Prabhas Moghe is Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Associate Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at Rutgers University. In addition, he holds graduate faculty appointment in the Graduate Program in Cell and Developmental Biology at Rutgers/UMDNJ. He has served as Undergraduate Program Director in Biomedical Engineering and currently directs the NSF IGERT Program on Integratively Engineered Biointerfaces at Rutgers. A Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and several teaching awards at Rutgers, Dr. Moghe has an active research program in the areas of cellular bioengineering; micro- and nano-systems bioengineering; and cell-interactive biomaterials. Alkis Constantinides is a Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, with nearly forty years of academic and industrial experience. He is the author of the textbook Applied Numerical Methods with Personal Computers and the co-author of the textbook Numerical Methods for Chemical Engineers with MATLAB Applications. Dr. Constantinides has served as Chairman of the Department, Director of the Graduate Program, Director of the Undergraduate Program, and Director of Alumni Relations. He is the recipient of the prestigious Warren I. Susman Award for Excellence in Teaching (1991), and the recipient of the 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2005 Best Teacher of the Year Awards chosen by the Graduating Senior Class of the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering