Abhijit Patwardhan, professor and interim chair, has been named the chair of the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Kentucky Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering.
Patwardhan began his teaching career in the UK Center for Biomedical Engineering in 1996 and became a full professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2008. He served the department as interim chair from 2015-17 and as director of graduate studies from 2004-2019.
An active researcher in the areas of cardiovascular control and signal processing, Patwardhan has secured funding from top federal and private agencies throughout his career including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, NASA and the American Heart Association.
In 2019, Patwardhan and a team of UK College of Medicine researchers were awarded a $1.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to research Toxoplasma gondii, an insidious parasite that infects one out of three people on the planet. This work led to a deeper understanding of the parasite’s physiology, which was key to understanding the basis for drug resistance, identification of novel drug targets and exposing the mechanisms governing reactivation of the parasite.
Patwardhan is also the director of the UK Cardiac Rhythm Lab. His lab is focused on determining mechanisms of arrhythmic activity in the ventricles of the heart, neural control of cardiovascular regulation and development of image processing and machine learning tools for high throughput analysis of histologic images.
As department chair, Patwardhan looks forward to expanding the department in both physical and academic spaces.
“This is an exciting time for our department, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to identify and foster opportunities for continued growth – from new lab spaces and modern facilities to increased interdisciplinary collaborations and additional faculty,” Patwardhan said. “This growth will enrich the curriculum, research portfolio, and student experience.”
He earned his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering in 1992 and master of science in mechanical engineering in 1988, both from UK. He earned his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering in 1984 from the College of Engineering Pune, India.