Wael Barsoum, M.D.
Orthopaedic Surgery,
Cleveland Clinic

Specialty Interests
Reconstructive surgery of the hip and knee joints including arthroscopy, primary and revision joint replacements.

Edward Benzel, M.D.
Chairman, Department of Neurosurgery Director, Center for Spine Health

Specialty Interests
Spine biomechanics, cervical spondylosis and spinal neoplasms.

Lisa Ferrara, D.Eng.
OrthoKinetic Technologies, LLC

Specialty interest
Evaluation of orthopedic and neurosurgical implants.

Jeremy Gilbert, Ph.D.
Professor, Associate Dean
for Research and Doctoral Programs
L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science, Syracuse University

Specialty Interests
Novel bone cements, electrochemical phenomenon associated with metallic implant materials, material-biological environment interaction, orthopedic implant design and degradation mechanisms.

Thomas Gildea, M.D.
Medical Director,
Center for Major Airway Disease
Department of Pulmonary,
Allergy, & Critical Care Medicine,
Cleveland Clinic

Specialty Interests
Advanced diagnostic and therapeutic bronchoscopy, interventional pulmonary medicine, lung volume reduction, lung transplantation, Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency.

Michael Helmus, Ph.D.
Consultant
Medical Devices, Biomaterials, Drug Delivery, and Nanotechnology
Boston, MA

Specialty Interests
Helmus brings years of experience at Boston Scientific, Edwards Lifesciences, Baxter CVS, Pfizer, and Arthur D. Little to provide insight into identification and acquisition of new technologies, and implementation and management of R&D programs.

Jennifer Hoffman, Ph.D.
Manager
Exponent Incorporated,
Menlo Park, CA

Specialty Interests
Characterization and testing of polymeric materials and has performed research in the area of structure-property relationships of thermoplastics, thermosets, polymer composites, and rubber materials.

Joshua J. Jacobs, M.D.
Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush University Medical Center

Specialty interests
Biomaterials, joint reconstruction, hip and knee replacement; president of the Orthopaedic Research Society.

Brad James, Ph.D.
Principal
Exponent Failure Analysis Associates, Menlo Park, CA

Specialty Interests
A specialist in failure analysis, metallurgy, fracture, fatigue, corrosion and material degradation issues, James has conducted hundreds of medical device failure analysis investigations.

Chris Jenney, Ph.D.
Director, Materials Research,
St. Jude Medical Cardiac Rhythm Management Division

Specialty Interests
Materials and biomaterials; currently leading an engineering group developing implantable defibrillator leads

Michael Machuzak, M.D.
Pulmonary Medicine, Cleveland Clinic



Specialty interest
Pulmonary medicine.

Dana Medlin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
South Dakota School of Mines
and Technology

Specialty Interests
A leading materials expert who was previously principal engineer for Zimmer Inc., Medlin will describe major trends in minimally invasive surgical (MIS) procedures.

Alan Pelton, Ph.D.
Research Fellow
Nitinol Devices
& Components,
Fremont, CA

Specialty Interests
A co-founder of the International Organization for Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies, Pelton’s interests include corrosion and fatigue of Nitinol medical devices.

Peter Rasmussen, M.D.
Director Cerebrovascular Center
Cleveland Clinic

Specialty Interests
Endovascular and microsurgical management of cerebral aneurysms, AVMs, fistulas, spinal cord vascular malformations, carotid endarterectomy, carotid and intracranial angioplasty and stenting.

Sanjay Shrivastava, Ph.D.
Director of Research
EV3 Neurovascular, Irvine, CA

Specialty Interests
Plaque excision systems, PTA balloons, stents, embolic protection, thrombectomy, embolization coils, liquid embolics, occlusion balloons.

Robert Urban, M.D.
Rush Medical College

Specialty interest
Implant pathology/in-vivo materials testing.

Bruce Wilkoff, M.D.
Cardiovascular Medicine
Cleveland Clinic

Specialty Interests
Cardiovascular implantable electronic devices, transvenous lead extraction and complications of implantable electronic device therapy (infectious, lead problems, vein occlusion)

Ming Wu, Ph.D.
Advanced Materials and Technologies
Edwards Lifesciences,
Irvine, CA

Specialty Interests
Development, manufacturing and applications for Nitinol and other shape memory alloys.