A national search for a leader of the biomedical engineering department of Vanderbilt University School of Engineering has resulted in the selection of Professor Todd Giorgio, the department's interim chair and a researcher associated with the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.

Giorgio said in a VU release this morning he intends to increase awareness of talent and resources in the department, as part of a drive to produce "innovations in medical practice."

Giorgio predicted hiring a "substantial number of new faculty" and additional resources for current and future lines of research, as well as commercializing knowledge gained through research via ventures formed for that purpose.

Announcing Giorgio's appointment, VUSE Dean Ken Galloway said that in the course of a national search, it became clear that Giorgio is the "best possible" successor to retiring biomedical engineering Chairman Thomas R. Harris.

Georgio said, "We have a special opportunity, through a combination of expansion and retirements, to hire a substantial number of new faculty members over the next five years. We have the resources to strengthen our current areas of expertise and to establish new areas of research in cooperation with medicine and the biological sciences."

The biomedical engineering department has 18 faculty members, roughly 300 undergraduate students and 70 graduate students.

In addition to his primary appointment, Giorgio also serves as professor of chemical engineering and professor of interdisciplinary materials science. He is on the executive committee of the Vanderbilt Institute for Nanoscale Science and Engineering. His work with the Vanderbilt-Ingram Center has yielded new ideas for cancer treatment.

In 1987, Giorgio arrived Vanderbilt as an assistant professor of chemical engineering, and has since won numerous awards for teaching and research. He earned his B.S. degree in 1982 at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., and his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Rice University in Houston.