The Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati (UCBME) came into existence on January 1, 2001 following a strong independent review and recommendation by a diverse UC Taskforce commissioned by Provosts Tony Perzigian and Don Harrison. Four faculty immediately transferred into BME from other active basic science and clinical departments, Drs. Ball, Butler, Holland and Grood. The undergraduate program and degree were approved in 2001 including both a biomechanics and pre-med option. The MS and PhD degrees were approved by the Ohio Board of Regents (OBR) in May 2002, augmented by a Special Opportunity Award from the Whitaker Foundation with OBR cost sharing. This permitted us to recruit out first graduate student class in September 2002. Our faculty and the Taskforce agreed that it would be best to concentrate on 3 focus areas, including Tissue Engineering/Biomechanics, Medical Imaging and Bioinformatics.

A second Whitaker Foundation Special Opportunity Award in 2003 allowed us to expand our undergraduate program into Medical Product Design and Entrepreneurship. We also recruited an additional nine faculty (Drs. Guo, Haridas, Johnson, Lee, Mast, Montemagno, Narmoneva, Shearn and Ms. Privitera) and six staff members (Ms. Derenski, Ms. Moeller, Mr. Sanderson, Ms. Siefert, Mr. Ferrell, and Ms. Randolph) between 2002 and 2007, resulting in a total of 12 primary faculty members who span a broad range of disciplines, including ultrasound and MR imaging, bioinformatics/biostatistics, tissue engineering, biomaterials engineering, cellular engineering, biomechanics and medical product design & entrepreneurship. In addition, BME currently shares two joint faculty members with the Department of Environmental Health (Dr. Rao and Dr. Meller). UCBME also interacts with over 25 secondary faculty from ten different departments at UC and Children's Hospital Medical Center. These secondary faculty members have been especially helpful in teaching and student advising. Together, this has allowed us to expand our student