BME Day 2020

Prior to her PhD, Dr. Ferrara was a principal engineer with General Electric Medical Systems. She received her PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of California Davis. Dr. Ferrara served as the foudning chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis, now a department of over 30 faculty members. Over a period of six years at UC Davis, she developed the departmental educational programs, hired 13 faculty members and funded and developed the facilities before stepping down to focus on her research program. She is currently a Professir in the Department of Radiology at Stanford University and the Acting Division Chief of the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford. Dr. Ferrara is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), Biomedical Engineering Society, Acoustical Society of America, World Molecular Imaging Society and American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. Her publications include ~300 manuscripts. Her Laboratory has received awards that include the IEEE UFFC Achievement Award, the IEEE Ultrasonics Rayleigh Award, the IEEE Biomedical Engineering Award, the WMIC Gold Medal, the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research, and the Judith Poole Award from the Association of Women in Science. Her contributions include work in image-guided drug and gene delivery, techniques for radiolabeling nanoparticles, immunotherapeutics, combining focal and immunotherapies, nanoparticle design, and ultrasound imagin and transducer design. Recent papers focus on transfection and enhanced immune system response. Her laboratory is broadly developing strategies for combined focal and immunotherapies, immune cell imaging, and nanovaccines