Anita Mahadevan-Jansen, Orrin H. Ingram Professor of Biomedical Engineering, has been elected a 2012 Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). She will be inducted at the Fellow Induction and Awards Ceremony at AIMBE’s 21st annual event Feb. 20 at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C.
Recipients of this honor, considered one of the highest in the biomedical engineering discipline, are chosen for exceptional leadership and achievements in medical and biological engineering. The elected Fellows of AIMBE consist of the top two percent of biomedical engineers and include some of the most imaginative and distinguished bioengineers in the field.
Mahadevan-Jansen develops applications of optical techniques for diagnosis of pathology. Her primary research – in Vanderbilt’s Biomedical Photonics Laboratory – investigates the applications of optical spectroscopies and imaging for cancer diagnosis and guidance of therapy. For example, Mahadevan-Jansen discovered a unique, natural fluorescent signature to parathyroid glands, which allows a simple and reliable optical detector to positively identify the glands during endocrine surgery. The discovery was reported in the July 2011 issue of the Journal of Biomedical Optics.
She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from the University of Bombay, India; a master’s and Ph.D. degrees in biomedical engineering from the University of Texas-Austin. She joined the Vanderbilt engineering faculty as an assistant professor in 1998.
She is an associate editor of the Journal of Biomedical Optics and has served as a reviewer of more than 20 journals, and served as chair of more than 20 professional conferences, and authored over 75 peer-reviewed publications and presented over 175 abstracts and conference presentations.
Mahadevan-Jansen is a fellow of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery (ASLMS), and the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE). She is the recipient of a Chancellor’s Research Award at Vanderbilt.