In addition to being a member of the faculty team selected in 2016 to advance to the second phase of Illinois Tech’s Nayar Prize I, Kenneth Tichauer, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award this year to further refine the team’s ADEPT Cancer Imager.
Tichauer, along with Jovan Brankov, associate professor of biomedical engineering/electrical and computer engineering, and Rajendra Mehta, professor emeritus of biology, developed the imager to spatially map the variable characteristics of cancers at the cellular level. By doing so, it will help to identify new and effective drugs designed to handle disease variability. Treatment strategies can then be personally tailored to each patient.
The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award recognizes junior faculty members as exemplary teacher-scholars. Illinois Tech Trustee Madhavan Nayar (M.S. IE ’68) and his wife, Teresa, on behalf of the Nayar Family Foundation, established a $1 million gift to fund the Nayar Prize awards to challenge university faculty, staff, and students to develop breakthrough, innovative projects that will, within three years, produce meaningful results with a societal impact.