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Brian Pogue Elected to National Academy of Inventors

Dec 07, 2021   |   by Julie Bonette

Brian Pogue, the MacLean Professor of Engineering at Dartmouth, has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Election as an NAI Fellow is the highest professional distinction for academic inventors who "have demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society."

Professor Brian Pogue

In addition to teaching at Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, Pogue also serves as an adjunct professor of surgery at the Geisel School of Medicine. He is co-director of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center's (NCCC) Translational Engineering in Cancer program and the Dartmouth Medical Physics PhD Education program, which he founded.

Pogue is a renowned expert in medical imaging systems, particularly biomedical imaging guidance for cancer therapy and dose imaging in radiation therapy. In 2019, he co-founded QUEL Imaging LLC, a venture spun out of Dartmouth Engineering that provides world-leading expertise in biomedical optics to enable optical diagnosis and treatment; he also serves as the organization's president. In addition, he co-founded and serves as president of DoseOptics LLC, which develops cameras capable of real-time imaging of radiation therapy by utilizing the Cherenkov effect which occurs when radiation beams interact with tissue producing a small light emission from the surface.

"Dartmouth and the Thayer School of Engineering laboratory at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health have provided the ideal environment for invention and discovery work here in the Upper Valley. The establishment of a startup and the opportunity to work with outstanding minds like those at DoseOptics was the second key ingredient in this pathway. I will be forever indebted to the wonderful collaborators and students who help helped translate Cherenkov imaging into a commercial product."

Professor Brian Pogue

Pogue has authored more than 400 peer-reviewed journal articles which have been cited more than 30,000 times. While at Dartmouth, he has received more than $37 million in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is the holder of 12 patents, with an additional 12 pending.

He has taught at Dartmouth Engineering since 2007, and previously taught at Dartmouth from 1996 to 2002. From 2008 to 2012, he served as Dartmouth's dean of graduate studies.

Currently, Pogue is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Biomedical Optics, which is published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. In both 2019 and 2020 he was named SPIE Community Champion. He is a fellow of SPIE, Optica (formerly OSA), and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

As the newest NAI Fellow at Dartmouth, Pogue joins Keith Paulsen Th'84 Th'86, Robert A. Pritzker Professor of Biomedical Engineering; Rahul Sarpeshkar, professor of engineering, Thomas E. Kurtz Professor, and Chair of the Neukom Academic Cluster in Computational Science; Eric Fossum, John H. Krehbiel Sr. Professor of Engineering, vice provost for entrepreneurship and technology transfer, and director of the PhD Innovation Program; Tillman Gerngross, professor of engineering; Richard Greenwald Th'88, adjunct professor of engineering; Elsa Garmire, Sydney E. Junkins 1887 Professor of Engineering Emeritus and former Thayer dean; Robert Dean Jr., adjunct professor of engineering emeritus; as well as other faculty across Dartmouth.

The formal induction ceremony for this year's fellows will take place at the annual meeting of the NAI in June 2022 in Phoenix, Ariz. The 2021 Fellow class hails from 116 research universities and governmental and non-profit research institutes worldwide. They collectively hold over 4,800 issued US patents. Their collective body of research and entrepreneurship covers a broad range of scientific disciplines involved with technology transfer of their inventions.

The NAI was founded in 2010 to recognize and encourage inventors with patents issued from the US Patent and Trademark Office, enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation, encourage the disclosure of intellectual property, educate and mentor innovative students, and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society.

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