Biomedical engineering

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Dr. Joel Myklebust, former deputy director of the Office of Science and Engineering Laboratories, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, at the FDA. Myklebust recounts his childhood in Iowa and his libertarian politics as a college student in Chicago. He describes his graduate work at the Medical College of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where he conducted research on neuroscience from a physics perspective. Myklebust explains his work in biomedical engineering at Marquette where he studied neurological issues relating to aging. Myklebust describes the circumstances leading to his tenure at the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, where he worked on rehabilitation engineering, and he describes his work in CDRH over the past twenty years. He provides a broad overview of the development of biomedical physics at the FDA, and he discusses the various technological and regulatory issues surrounding the Agency’s mission to ensure device efficacy and safety.

In this interview, Ilko Ilev, discusses his career as a Senior Biomedical Research Service Scientist within the U.S. Health and Human Services Department. He details getting his PhD from the Technical University of Sofia in laser physics, where his thesis was focused on the development of alternative effective laser designs with direct lens-free optical fiber outputs and their implementations towards nonlinear broadband frequency conversions in optical fibers. Ilev details his experience as a Senior Assistant Professor at the Technical University of Sofia where he taught courses on general physics, quantum electronics, and fiber optics. He discusses the relationship between the FDA and medical device manufacturers. He describes the FDA’s longstanding collaboration with the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences, which has resulted in the development of a new field, Photobiomodulation Therapeutics. Lastly, Ilev discusses the various ways in which physics is directly applicable to his work.