Sean Kirkpatrick Named SPIE Felllow

Sean Kirkpatrick, chair of biomedical engineering, has been named a Fellow of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.  He is one of 69 new Fellows announced by SPIE on Monday, March 4.

Kirkpatrick was chosen for his achievements in theory and application of laser speckle in biomedical fields.  In a news release announcing the new Fellows, SPIE said: " Kirkpatrick has made valuable contributions to research on the interface between the fields of continuum mechanics, tissue mechanics and optics. His primary accomplishments have been in developing both the theoretical basis and practical applications of laser speckle techniques for biomedical imaging and diagnostics. He pioneered the use of laser speckle for understanding soft tissue mechanics and was one of the founders of the field of optical elastography."  

Kirkpatrick has developed, patented and published on unique and highly sensitive methods for quantifying the micro- and macro-mechanical behavior of hard tissue, vascular tissue, skin, and ligamentous tissue, among other tissue types. Kirkpatrick has also developed light scattering methods for assessing the mechanical properties of synthetic biomaterials and the curing behavior of biopolymers.

"It is quite an honor to be recognized by the international optics community in this fashion,” Kirkpatrick said.  “This recognition further highlights the strengths we have in optics and optical engineering at Michigan Tech in many departments across the different colleges and schools."

Kirkpatrick is the author of over 80 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and SPIE Proceedings manuscripts. He has co-edited several books and has attracted nearly $5 million in external funding for research in various aspects of optics related to the medical sciences. Kirkpatrick has served as a regular and ad hoc reviewer for numerous journals, both within the field of optics and within other fields of science and engineering, including Applied Spectroscopy, Journal of Biomedical Optics, IEEE Transactions in Biomedical Engineering, and Optics and Lasers in Engineering. He is a frequent grant reviewer for the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Kirkpatrick has been of member of SPIE since 1996 and is currently a Lifetime member. He has been active in SPIE as an author, conference chair, conference program committee member, editor and instructor. Besides a significant publication record in SPIE journals and proceedings, he has actively served as an organizer (chair, co-chair, session chair) of more than 27 SPIE conferences, chairing numerous meetings on the use of optics in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan’s flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.