Symposium 2024

Joseph J. Pancrazio has a 30+ year career spanning academia and federal government working at the interface of bioscience and engineering. He earned a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1984, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, in 1988 and 1990, respectively. Currently, he serves as Vice President for Research and Innovation (VPRI) and Professor of Bioengineering at UT Dallas. In his role as VPRI, he oversees research funding, grants and contracts; campus research facilities and information systems; technology commercialization and licensing; venture development “incubator” facilities; and research compliance. In addition, he supports an innovative seed grant program, one of the largest in the state of Texas, aimed at catalyzing collaborative research ventures aimed to distinguish UT Dallas and grow federal research.  As Professor of Bioengineering, he is “research active” with multiple NIH grants and a productive publication record. Dr. Pancrazio’s research focuses on the development and demonstration of novel neural interface technology, which is used to understand and influence the brain and nervous system for the purposes of improving human health. Prior to joining UT Dallas in 2015 as Associate Provost, he served as the founding chair of Bioengineering at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Before arriving at Mason in 2008, he was with federal government as a Material Scientist at the US Naval Research Laboratory and as the Program Director for Neural Engineering at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC. In 2011, Dr. Pancrazio was elected to the College of Fellows in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a distinction reserved for the top 2% of professionals in the field. In 2023, he was elected to the Board of Directors for the Oak Ridge Association of Universities.