Vasan Venugopalan

Chair, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
Professor, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

Dr. Vasan Venugopalan holds joint appointments as professor and chair of the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering and at UCI Beckman Laser Institute & Medical Clinic. In addition, he has collaborated on numerous research projects in the department of electrical and computer engineering.

Dr. Venugopalan has extensive experience in modeling and experimentation related to interactions of laser radiation with cells and tissues. His ongoing investigations focus on the use of highly-focused laser pulses for targeted cellular manipulation. Dr. Venugopalan also employs computational modeling of light transport in cells and tissues for applications in biophotonics education, optical diagnosis, imaging and therapy. The value of his research spans the fields of medical diagnostics, therapeutics, biotechnology and micro-electro-mechanical systems.

Currently, Dr. Venugopalan’s lab has three major research emphases: 1) using optical spectroscopic methods as a non-invasive method to measure the optical and physiological properties of biological tissues for diagnosis and monitoring; 2) employing time-resolved optical interferometric methods for biological tissue imaging and 3) developing pulsed laser microbeam methods for cellular manipulation and modification.

Dr. Venugopalan has twice earned the ASLMS student research fellowship and been recognized with the UCI Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Accomplishment in Fostering Undergraduate Research . He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, International Society of Optical Engineers, Optical Society of America and SPIE.

Dr. Venugopalan earned his B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his M.S. and Sc.D. in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Research Interests
+ Optical diffusion theory
+ Photothermal and photomechanical phenomena
+ Laser-tissue interactions
+ Optoacoustic imaging
+ Radiative transport in turbid media
+ Computational biophotonics

  • Education

    Sc.D., Mechanical Engineering MIT 1994

  • Email

    vvenugop@uci.edu

  • Phone

    949.824.5802