Anita Mahadevan-Jansen, the Orrin H. Ingram Professor of Engineering, director of the Biophotonics Center, and a professor of biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, is the new president-elect of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. She will become president of SPIE in 2022.
“I am reassured by the support of the optics and photonics community and I am excited to serve the society,” said Professor Mahadevan-Jansen. Mahadevan-Jansen’s technical interests include biophotonics, optical spectroscopy and imaging for disease detection, neurophotonics, cancer diagnosis, optical guidance of surgery, and clinical translation of optical technologies.
The society was founded in 1955 to advance light-based technologies. Serving 255,000 constituents from 183 countries, the not-for-profit society advances emerging technologies through interdisciplinary information exchange, continuing education, publications, patent precedent, and career and professional growth. Research spans biomedicine, communications, sensors, defense and security, manufacturing, electronics, energy, and imaging.
Dr. Mahadevan-Jansen holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from the University of Bombay in India. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Texas. She has served on the faculty at Vanderbilt University since 1996.