Shankar Subramaniam received a Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1982 from the Indian Institute of Technology. He is the Chair of the Bioengineering Department and the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Endowed Chair in Bioengineering and Systems Biology at UC San Diego. In addition, he holds joint appointments in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Chemistry and Biochemistry and Nanoengineering at UCSD and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He was the founding Director of the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology Interdisciplinary Program. He was named a distinguished scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center in 2010. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and is a recipient of the Genome All Star, Smithsonian Foundation and Laboratory Automation awards.

Dr. Ratner received his Ph.D. from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. He is an expert in specially designed materials (biomaterials) used in medical devices and implants, and his lab is working on bioengineering projects for tissues and organs such as heart muscle, the esophagus, bones and cartilage, and the cornea. Other projects include drug delivery to the eye and to the brain, micronutrient analysis for global health applications, and surface analysis for biomedical problems.

Dr. Ken Monson is an Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Bioengineering at the University of Utah. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UC-Berkeley in 2001. His research focuses primarily on vascular biomechanics in traumatic brain injury, but he is also exploring vessel behavior in other contexts. His expertise in blood vessel testing techniques has led to addressing other medical problems and challenges, including diseases associated with pre-term birth and the delivery of drugs across the blood-brain barrier.

Ben is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) who currently works as an R&D project manager/team leader in Medtronic's MITG, Advanced Energy business in Boulder, CO. Ben is a member of the Board of Directors and the Industry Committee Chair for the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), a member of Wichita State University's Biomedical Engineering Advisory Board, and the Chairman of the Young Professionals Board for Project C.U.R.E.