BME @ CCNY Named Lecture Series
The Zweifach Lecture
The Zweifach Lecture was initiated in 1999 to honor CCNY alum Benjamin W. Zweifach, who was a pioneer in bioengineering. Dr. Zweifach received a BS in Biology in 1931 from CCNY and a PhD in Physiology from New York University Medical College in 1936. Dr. Zweifach maintained a world-renowned career in applying engineering methods to study microvasculature. He was a professor at Cornell from 1947-1952, at NYU from 1952-1966, and and helped establish one of the nation's first bioengineering departments at the University of California at San Diego, where he taught from 1966 until his death in 1997. CCNY bestowed upon him its most prestigious alumni award, the Townsend Harris Medal, in 1994.
The invitation to present in this named lecture is among the highest honors our department can give, which is reflected by the world-renowned faculty members which have come before. Those include Nobel Laureates, members of all three National Academies, and other luminaries. The seminar is usually held in the Fall semester of each year.
1999: Y.C. Fung, University of California at San Diego Bioengineering
2000: Peter Davies, University of Pennsylvania Bioengineering
2001: Shu Chien, University of California at San Diego Bioengineering
2002: James Hudspeth, Rockefeller University
2003: Michael Gimbrone, Harvard Medical School
2004: Robert Langer, MIT [Inauguration of BME @ CCNY]
2005: Robert Nerem, Georgia Tech
2006: Rakesh Jain, Harvard University
2008: Frances Arnold, CalTech
2009: Rebecca Richards-Kortum, Rice University
2010: Jay Humphrey, Yale University Biomedical Engineering
2011: Roderic Pettigrew, Director of the National Institutes of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)
2012: Don Giddens, Georgia Tech
2013: Linda Griffith, MIT
2014: Cato Laurencin, University of Connecticut
2015: Gerard Ateshian, Columbia University Biomedical Engineering
2016: Kam Leong, Columbia University Biomedical Engineering
2017: Sangeeta Bhatia, MIT
2018: Molly Shoichet, University of Toronto
2019: Geert Schmid-Schonbein, University of California at San Diego
2022: Farsh Guilak, Washington University in St. Louis
2023: Zahi Fayad, Mount Sinai Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Institute
2024: Bin He, Carnegie Mellon University Biomedical Engineering
2025: Deepak Vashishth, Rensselear - Icahn School of Medicine Center for Engineering & Precision Medicine
SKT Lecture
The CCNY BME seminar series was initiated in Spring 1997 and for many years was supported by funds from the SKT Memorial Lecture Fund provided by a group of CCNY engineering alumni and their spouses to support biomedical engineering seminars. In Spring 2002 the first named SKT Lecture was held, and in Spring 2025 this seminar was renamed the Harold and Elaine Shames-SKT Lecture to recognize the generous support of Harold and Elaine Shames to BME @ CCNY. This lecture is typically held in each Spring semester.
2002: Tom Skalak, University of Virginia Biomedical Engineering
2008: Michael Sacks, University of Pittsburgh
2009: Frances Ligler, US Naval Research Laboratory
2010: Ajit Yoganathan, Georgia Tech
2011: Richard Waugh, University Rochester Biomedical Engineering
2012: Alan Grodzinsky, MIT
2013: David Burr, Indiana University Biomedical Engineering
2014: Martha Gray, MIT
2015: George Truskey, Duke University Biomedical Engineering
2016: Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Columbia University Biomedical Engineering
2017: Henry Donahue, Virginia Commonwealth University Biomedical Engineering
2019: Mark Saltzman, Yale University Biomedical Engineering
2024: Tejal Desai, Dean of Brown Engineering
2025: John Bishof, University of Minnesota
Last Updated: 02/05/2026 16:40