Dr. Wei Chen is a Professor in the Departments of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. He received his B.S. degree at Fudan University in China. In 1985, he joined Professor Ackerman's lab as a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis and received his PhD in 1990. He spent three years as a postdoctoral associate in Professor Shulman's lab at Yale University Medical School. He moved to the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) at the University of Minnesota in 1994 and became a professor in 2002. His research interests focus on developments of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) methodologies and the utilization of these methodologies for studying metabolism, bioenergetics and function of brain and other organs noninvasively. He is one of leading experts in brain research using functional MRI and MRS. His lab has conducted a number of pioneer research and few examples are: (1) To successfully mapping activation and the retinotopic map in the lateral geniculate nucleus in the human brain using high-field fMRI. (2) In collaboration with Dr. Seiji Ogawa, to extend the fMRI approach for probing fast neuronal interaction in human brain. (3) To establish an in vivo 17O MRS approach at high field for imaging the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO2) and its change elevated by stimulation. (4) To develop in vivo 31P MRS approach combined with the magnetization transfer method for noninvasively determining brain ATP metabolic rates.

Dr. Jens Haueisen received a M.S. and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Technical University Ilmenau, Germany, in 1992 and 1996, respectively. From 1996 to 1998 he worked as a Post-Doc and from 1998 to 2005 as the head of the Biomagnetic Center, Friedrich-Schiller-University, Jena, Germany. In 2003 he received the habilitation (professorial thesis). Since 2005 he is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and directs the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Informatics at the Technical University Ilmenau, Germany. He has authored and co-authored more than 100 research articles in peer reviewed scientific journals and is on two editorial boards. From 2002 to 2004 he served as President and from 2004 to 2006 as Secretary General of the International Advisory Board on Biomagnetism. Currently he is chair of the study program development commission and chair of the examination commission of the Bachelor and Master program ¡°Biomedical Engineering¡± and vice dean for study affairs and chair of the study commission at the faculty of Computer Science and Automation at the Technical University Ilmenau. His research interests include the investigation of active and passive bioelectric and biomagnetic phenomena and medical technology for ophthalmology.

Dr. Bin He is Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Neuroscience, and the Interim Director of Center for Neuroengineering at the University of Minnesota (http://www.tc.umn.edu/~binhe/). His major research interests include biomedical functional imaging and source imaging, neuroengineering, and bioelectromagnetism. He is internationally recognized in the field of biomedical source imaging and functional imaging. His influential studies of a family of electrophysiological imaging methods have led to significantly enhanced spatial resolution for imaging brain and cardiac electrical sources from noninvasive electrical measurements. Dr. He is a Fellow of IEEE and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and is the recipient of numerous awards in recognition of his research including the NSF CAREER Award, the University of Illinois University Scholar Award, Tejima Prize, and the American Heart Association Established Investigator Award. His recent professional activities include serving as the President of the International Society for Bioelectromagnetism (2002-2005) and Vice President for Publications (2005-2007) of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS). Dr. He has served or serves as an Associate Editor, Guest Editor, or Editorial Board Member of over a dozen international journals in the field of biomedical engineering, and was appointed as the Conference Chair of the Annual International Conference of IEEE-EMBS to be held in 2009 in Minneapolis, MN, USA. Dr. He also holds the Kuang-piu Lecture Professorship at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, and is listed in Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in the World. Recently Dr. He was elected as the President-elect of the IEEE-EMBS for 2008.

Dr. Zhi-Pei Liang received his Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 1989. He is currently Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering with joint appointments in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Computational Biophysics Program, and the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign. Dr. Liang's research interests include magnetic resonance imaging, super-resolution image reconstruction using a priori constraints, statistical and learning-based methods for biomedical image analysis, and their application to functional brain mapping, cancer imaging, and cardiac imaging. He has made significant contributions to the theory, techniques and biomedical applications of the model-based approach to high-speed MRI. For example, Dr. Liang was the first to propose the generalized series imaging concept, which provides an optimal mathematical framework to incorporate a priori information into the imaging process for high-speed imaging. Dr. Liang is a recipient of the Sylvia Sorkin Greenfield Best Paper Award of the Medical Physics Journal, the NSF CAREER Award, and the IEEE-EMBS Early Career Achievement Award. He was named Fellow of the UIUC Center for Advanced Study, Henry Magnuski Scholar, and University Scholar. He is Fellow of IEEE and American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE-EMB Society, and a recipient of the Ronald W. Pratt Faculty Outstanding Teaching Award and the Engineering Council Award for Excellence in Advising. He was elected Vice-President for Conferences of IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (2006-2007).