Bijan Najafi

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Bijan Najafi

Bijan Najafi
Born	(1972-03-12) March 12, 1972 Isfahan, Iran
🏳️ Nationality	Iranian-American
💼 Occupation	Researcher, Faculty (academic staff)
Notable work	Wearable for Physical Activity Monitoring., Wearable for Gait Assessment, Fall Prediction in Older Adults, and Exergame

Bijan Najafi (born March 12, 1972 in Iran) is a Biomedical Engineer and researcher most widely known for his work in wearable technology, digital health, Fall_prevention, and diabetic foot. He is currently serving with the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Michael_DeBakey Department of Surgery as a tenured Professor and Director of Clinical Research in the Division of Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy., Director of Interdisciplinary Consortium on Advanced Motion Performance (iCAMP) , member of Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, and member of Center for Precision Environmental Health. He has produced more than 400 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals or conference proceeding. He is also serving as the section editor for Gerontology, Technology section

Prior to his appointment at Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Najafi served as a Professor (with tenure) in the Department of Surgery at University_of_Arizona as well as director of the interdisciplinary Consortium on Advanced Motion Performance (iCAMP), chair of research operation at the Southern Arizona Limb Salvage Alliance (SALSA), member of Arizona Center on Aging, Member of Arizona Cancer Center, and scientific advisory board member of the Arizona Arthritis Center

Biography

Early life and Education

Najafi was born in Isfahan, Iran to Jamshid and Fatemeh Najafi. After attending the Harati High School in Isfahan, he attended Isfahan University of Technology in Isfahan from 1990-1994, where he was graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree with major in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1994 and was awarded as the First Rank of his Class. To pursue his education he moved to Tehran, Iran and attended Sharif University of Technology, Electrical Engineering Department from 1994-1997 and graduated in with Master of Science Degree in Biomedical Engineering in 1997. Then he was awarded a research scholarship and moved to Switzerland and attended graduate program at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne,Switzerland, Department of Electrical Engineering from 1994-2002 and graduated with PhD Degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2002.

Lausanne, Switzerland Years: 1998-2006

Najafi spent much of his young adult life in Lausanne from 1998-2006. During this time he met his wife, Bahareh Doroudain and married in 2001. While was a graduate student, he was involved in a national project with collaboration of The Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) and Swiss TeleAlarm under mentorship of Prof. Kamiar Aminian and Prof. Philippe Robert, to design a wearable platform to promote Aging in Place. Thanks to this project, he learned skills in the area of wearable technology, Biomechanics, and signal processing and have succesfully achieved to file two patents in the area of wearable technology in his early research career including remote daily physical activities and risk of falls in older adults monitoring using a single wearable sensor and one of the first gyroscope-based wearable platform for measuring body movement including gait parameters outside of a gait lab. After graduation he joined the Laboratory of Movement Analysis and Measurement (LMAM) as research associate and a lecturer (chargé de cours) at the Department of Electrical Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne till 2006. During this time he was involved and contributed in several national and European projects including Prevention of Falls Network Europe (ProFaNE), a thematic network with 25 partners focusing on the issue of prevention of falls and improvement of postural stability amongst elderly people and LIAISON (LocatIon bAsed servIceS for the enhancement of wOrking enviroNment), an European Project focused on designing mobile technology for enhancing of working environment. To improve his research career, he has decided to move to US and joined Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA, Neuromotor Control Lab, as a research associate and under mentorship of Prof Maurice Smith.

Harvard time, Cambridge, MA, USA: 2006-2008

Following almost two years lectureship appointment at EPFL and in a dream to form his own research lab, Najafi has decided to step back and diversify his expertise toward brain science and accepted a fellowship position at Neuromotor Control lab at the Harvard University, 2006-2008, under supervision of Prof Maurice Smith. During this time, he gained knowledge in the area of robotics, motor learning, brain science, and computational modeling. His project was specifically focused on how brain retains a new motor skill. During this project he developed and tested a computational modeling to describe the process of forgetting a new acquired motor skill in hope to design optimized rehabilitation program to maximize the retention post learning. He used later these skills to develop different Neurorehabilitation and Exergaming programs tailored for different conditions affecting sensory-motor and balance including Diabetic neuropathy (DPN), Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), and Frailty syndrome. Toward middle of his fellowship training, he met his new mentor Prof David G. Armstrong and became familiar with concept of diabetic foot and decided to pursue his independent faculty career in the area of diabetic foot, while continue expanding his research in the area of wearable technology and brain science.

Rosalind Franklin University, Scholl College, North Chicago, IL, USA: 2008-2012

Following meeting with Prof David G. Armstrong, Najafi accepted an offer to serve as Assistant Professor at Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine, Department of Biomechanics, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science and director of Human Performance Lab at the Center for Lower Extremity Ambulatory Research (CLEAR). During this time he dedicated his research to diabetic foot and founded a productive research program in the area of mobile health and wearable technology. This program led to development of several new wearable platforms and metrics for better quantifying problems associated with diabetic foot such as an innovative wearable platfroms to quantify postural control and ankle stability, a new metric to better quantify effectiveness of custom made Orthotics, a new wearable platform to monitor patient adherence to footwear, and a new platform to evaluate motor skill progress in novice athletes including novice golf players. He and his colleague Prof James Wrobel also published one of the first systematic reviews to describe biomechanics of diabetic foot. During this time, he mentored many students from different disciplines and several postdocs including Dr Manish Bharara, Dr Gurtej Grewal, and Dr Sai Yalla. He was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 2011.

The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA: 2012-2016

Najafi, responding to his former mentor Prof David G. Armstrong, who joined the University of Arizona in 2009 to found the Southern Arizona Limb Salvage Alliance (SALSA) with Prof Joseph Mills, has decided to join the University of Arizona in 2012 and was recruited as an Associate Professor (with Tenure) in the Department of Surgery and Operation Chair of SALSA. Immediately after joining the University of Arizona, he founded and served as the director of interdisciplinary Consortium on Advanced Motion Performance (iCAMP) with collaboration of Prof Jane Mohler (Co-director), Prof David Armstrong (Scientific Director), and Prof Ruth Taylor-Pilae. iCAMP was an interdisciplinary research and development collaboration that engages creative teams from vascular surgery, orthopedics, podiatry, nursing, geriatrics, and engineering at the University of Arizona, Department of Surgery and trained many research interns, graduate students, and postdocs. During this time, Najafi diversified his research toward Frailty syndrome, wound healing, home telehealth, smart textiles, fall prevention, mobile health, outcomes research, and aging in place. During his time at iCAMP, he and his team published over 60 peer-reviewed papers, filed 5+ patents, and developed several innovative wearable platforms from automatic fall detection to screening frailty in older adults. Najafi was promoted to the rank of Full Professor (with Tenure) in 2015. In recognition of his accomplishments, he was awarded as one of the Influential Health and Medical Leaders in the category of achievement in medical devices by Tucson Local Media and his research was featured in several medias and news including IEEE PULSE.

Baylor College of Medicine: - iCAMP@BCM

After his former division chief and colleague, Prof Joseph Mills, has moved to Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), Houston, Texas in 2015 to serve as the chief of the Division of the Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy at BCM , he has invited Dr. Najafi to move to Houston and build iCAMP research consortium at BCM. Najafi then was recruited in Dec 2015 as Professor of Surgery (with Tenure) in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine and Director of Clinical Research at the Division of Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy, and Director of Interdisciplinary Consortium on Advanced Motion Performance (iCAMP). At BCM he continued his research in the area of telehealth, digital health, and wearable including smart textiles and expanded his research to telerehabilitation, IoT, smart home design, and dementia research. He built an active interdisciplinary collaboration with Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center - Houston, Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Rice University, and University of Houston. In addition, he held an appointment as Adjunct Professor in Rice University as well as the University of Arizona. While started with 5 staff in 2016, his team has been rapidly grown and reached to 20+ staff by early 2018. During this time he was awarded $10M+ awards including federal, foundation, industrial, and international funding including a Center Planning Grant from National Science Foundation’s Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) Programs and two international award from Qatar National Research Foundation. During this time, his interdisciplinary collaboration has been recognized nationally and internationally including a prestigious recognition "Best Research Project Award 2018" for a decade of interdisciplinary research collaboration dedicated to preventing amputation in people with diabetes in concert with the Qatar Foundation. It is considered as the highest research recognition in the nation

References

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