Event Speakers
Keynote
A foundational architect of modern bioengineering, Dr. Shu Chien is a Professor Emeritus of Bioengineering and Medicine and the founding Director of the UC San Diego Institute of Engineering in Medicine. With a career spanning over six decades, Dr. Chien’s pioneering research in human hemorheology—the study of blood flow—and mechanotransduction has earned him the National Medal of Science and memberships in all three National Academies (Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine).
Dr. Rob Knight is a Professor of Pediatrics, Bioengineering, and Computer Science & Engineering at UC San Diego, where he also serves as the Director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation. A visionary in the realm of microbial ecology, Dr. Knight’s work focuses on the "dark matter" of the biological world: the trillions of microbes that inhabit our bodies and planet. He is the co-founder of the American Gut Project and a lead developer of QIIME, the widely used bioinformatics pipeline for performing microbiome analysis.