In healthcare, one name stands out as a true trailblazer: Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu. As a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Dr. Chyu has passionately championed the convergence of these two seemingly disparate fields. His visionary work has earned him global recognition as a pioneer in Healthcare Engineering, often revered as the “Father of Healthcare Engineering” by no less than 13 prestigious US-based global magazines.
With an unwavering commitment to fostering collaboration between engineering and healthcare, Dr. Chyu has rewritten the playbook on how these disciplines can synergize to revolutionize the world of medicine. His groundbreaking efforts have not only advanced the field of Healthcare Engineering but also opened new horizons for solving intricate healthcare challenges through innovative engineering solutions.
At the helm of transformative change, Dr. Chyu founded the Healthcare Engineering Alliance Society (HEALS), an international organization that serves as a lighthouse for professionals striving to enhance and elevate healthcare through engineering ingenuity. As the Founding President of HEALS, his leadership has galvanized a global community of engineers, healthcare experts, and students dedicated to effecting positive change in healthcare
delivery, administration, and technology.
Dr. Chyu’s influence extends beyond his contemporaries, as he is actively involved in shaping the future workforce at the intersection of engineering and healthcare. By equipping engineering students and professionals with the tools to understand, navigate, and impact the healthcare landscape, he is preparing a generation of innovators ready to meet the complex challenges facing modern healthcare. Through his pioneering spirit, unyielding dedication, and visionary leadership, Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu has propelled Healthcare Engineering into the forefront of our collective consciousness. His journey, marked by accolades and
achievements, continues to inspire and catalyze transformative change.
Global Collaboration
Dr. Chyu has played a pioneering role in shaping the field of Healthcare Engineering through his extensive contributions and initiatives. Serving as a leader and collaborator, he led a global team of 40 expert coauthors to create a milestone white paper in 2015, which marked the first formal definition of Healthcare Engineering. This significant achievement was further solidified with its inclusion on Wikipedia.org. As the visionary founder and Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Healthcare Engineering, Dr. Chyu has been instrumental in fostering a platform for cutting-edge research and insights in this dynamic field. In addition, he established one of the most user-friendly, free medical device platforms in the world, encompassing an impressive array of over 220,000 devices from more than 34,000 manufacturers.
Dr. Chyu has a track record of assisting medical professionals and engineers in bridging the gap between clinical expertise and technological innovation. He helps doctors with inventions that require engineering, research, or commercialization support and engineers connect with clinicians to ensure their innovations have a meaningful impact on patient outcomes. Leveraging his extensive experience in this domain, he has established a collaborative platform that brings together a diverse range of stakeholders, including healthcare professionals, engineers, researchers, inventors, consultants, investors, entrepreneurs, and companies.
The COCACO (connect, catalyze, collaborate) platform serves as a hub for various technical projects aimed at addressing unmet needs in patient care, often stemming from the ideas of clinicians, engineers, and medical device/technology firms seeking partnerships for different stages of development, from concept to research, design, prototyping, testing, clinical trial, regulation compliance, FDA clearance/approval, manufacture, capital funding and more. Additionally, this platform offers valuable learning opportunities for engineering students, enabling them to engage with real-world healthcare projects alongside clinicians, engineers, and industry experts.
Saving Lives Through Education
Dr. Chyu’s commitment to education shines brightly through the diverse educational ecosystem he has built. Dr. Chyu is the founder of one of the world’s first graduate healthcare engineering degree programs, at Texas Tech University. His passion for advancing healthcare engineering education is evident in several remarkable initiatives that he has brought to life. He works with healthcare engineering professionals and industry leaders on strategies to better train engineering students for healthcare jobs, and helps university professors and administrators improve their curricula.
Dr. Chyu initiated a program designed to facilitate crossdisciplinary learning by inviting medical doctors with specialized knowledge in healthcare engineering and medical technology innovation to deliver lectures to engineering students. The program’s primary focus is on addressing healthcare challenges and issues that require engineering solutions to directly enhance patient outcomes. In addition to medical doctors, the program also welcomes engineering leaders from the healthcare industry, particularly those involved in medical devices and technology. Additionally, medical school professors holding engineering degrees are invited as guest speakers. These experts, possessing dual expertise, are exceptionally well-suited to teach engineering students about healthcare topics, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of the field.
As a powerful tool for the invention and development of new medical devices for student projects as well as healthcare engineering professionals, Dr. Chyu has built a comprehensive, user-friendly medical device platform (Medical Device Net) that provides systematic state-of-thetechnology information for all medical devices (currently over 220,000), including the most recent, cleared/approved by FDA.
Dr. Chyu’s dedication also led to the creation of an innovative short courses platform. By breaking down complex topics into easily digestible modules, he’s made valuable knowledge accessible to both experienced professionals and newcomers in the field. This platform’s adaptability ensures that people from various backgrounds can enhance their skills and contribute meaningfully to healthcare engineering. A major highlight of Dr. Chyu’s efforts is the development of a comprehensive healthcare engineering certificate program. This program not only imparts specialized knowledge but also emphasizes the practical application of skills. Graduates are equipped not just with information but also with a sense of duty to tackle the intricate challenges at the crossroads of healthcare and engineering. Beyond conventional education, Dr. Chyu’s ecosystem extends to a custom website tailored for engineering jobs within the healthcare sector. This platform serves as a dynamic bridge, connecting aspiring professionals and students with career opportunities that align with their passion. It’s not just about finding jobs or internship opportunities but about nurturing a new generation of forward-thinking problem solvers for the healthcare industry.
Demonstrating a commitment to mentorship and knowledge-sharing, Dr. Chyu established a pioneering mentoring program. This initiative engages seasoned healthcare engineering professionals and leaders, who generously offer their expertise to guide and empower engineering students and young professionals entering the healthcare and medical technology industry. Dr. Chyu’s visionary approach extends to online communities that serve as invaluable resources. These communities cover nearly 500 technical topics in healthcare engineering, making them one of the most comprehensive and updated sources of information in the field.
Diverse Specialties
Dr. Chyu’s impressive research endeavors have garnered support from a diverse array of funding sources, including prestigious institutions such as the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, US Department of Agriculture, national laboratories, professional societies, state government, private foundations, and industry. His breadth of experience spans multiple domains, ranging from superconductor research at Argonne National Laboratory, contributing to the design of the International Space Station at NASA Johnson Space Center, to nuclear energy research at Sandia National Laboratories. Dr. Chyu’s dedication to technical advancement is evident through his involvement in various esteemed organizations. He has served on numerous technical committees within the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). Remarkably, he assumed the role of Chair of the Superconductivity Technical Committee in the Advanced Energy Systems Division of ASME.
With over 200 technical publications to his name, including 140 archival journal papers in engineering and healthcare, Dr. Chyu’s research efforts span a wide spectrum of specialties. His work encompasses diverse fields such as epilepsy and cancer detection, biomechanics related to bones, joints, and muscles, as well as interventions ranging from biophysical stimulations to dietary supplements. Dr. Chyu employs a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating mathematical analysis, model simulation, and experimentation across laboratory, animal, and human studies.
About HEALS
The Healthcare Engineering Alliance Society (HEALS) is a global organization dedicated to enhancing and advancing healthcare through the application of engineering principles and methodologies. By creating a bridge between healthcare and engineering, HEALS strives to synergize these fields, equipping engineering students and professionals with the skills needed for healthcare roles, and aiding healthcare professionals in utilizing engineering to solve healthcare challenges.
HEALS’ overarching vision is to establish itself as a globally recognized leader in the Healthcare Engineering domain, driving the advancement of healthcare through the integration of engineering expertise. The mission of HEALS is to foster collaborative and innovative exchanges between the engineering and healthcare sectors, thereby enabling engineering to make meaningful contributions to the field of healthcare.
Insights on Healthcare Industry Growth
According to Dr. Chyu, the healthcare industry is currently among the largest and fastest-growing industries globally. As this sector experiences rapid expansion, the demand for professionals in healthcare engineering is expected to surge. Dr. Chyu foresees that in a world where healthcare is rapidly evolving and becoming increasingly intricate due to technological, economic, social, and regulatory influences, Healthcare Engineering will play an increasingly pivotal role in nearly every facet of healthcare, driving significant advancements.
Dr. Chyu underscores the importance of encouraging engineering students to consider careers in healthcare. He highlights the field’s exceptional growth opportunities, interdisciplinary challenges, and favorable long-term career prospects. Additionally, he emphasizes that choosing a career in healthcare engineering allows young minds to directly contribute to improving human life and health through engineering.
For aspiring engineers looking to make their mark in this domain, Dr. Chyu provides valuable advice: “Regardless of their specialties, engineers should collaborate closely with healthcare professionals, particularly clinicians, to design and create solutions that genuinely assist clinicians in patient care. Proactively seeking collaboration across disciplines is the key.”
As technology continues to open up new frontiers for engineering within healthcare and the integration of engineering and health sciences drives increased demand for engineers, Healthcare Engineering is poised to emerge as a vital profession, with engineers making significant contributions that directly enhance human health and wellbeing.
Prestigious Recognitions
Recognitions for Dr. Chyu’s exceptional contributions are numerous and prestigious. He holds the distinction of being a Fellow of ASME and a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Trustees. He has received more than 30 awards and recognitions, including titles like “Most Influential Leader in Engineering & Technology USA,” “World’s Visionary Leaders Making a Difference,” “Innovation Excellence Award,” “Transformational Business Leaders of the Year,” and “Best Inspiring Leaders of the Year.” These accolades extend to acknowledgments such as “Most Visionary Education Leaders,” “Top 100 Innovators & Entrepreneurs,” and “30 Most Inspiring Leaders to Watch in the US.” It is unusual for Dr. Chyu as an engineering professor to have won the following prestigious awards in Healthcare from three global professional magazines: “Most Influential Leaders in Healthcare in the US – 2022”, “10 Most Innovative Healthcare Leaders to Watch in the World – 2022”, and “Top 10 Eminent Leaders in the US Healthcare Industry 2023”. From government bodies, professional societies, foundations, industry partners, universities, and student organizations, Dr. Chyu’s contributions have earned him honors like “Outstanding Researcher,” “Award of Excellence,” “Best Paper,” “Most Useful Paper,” “Excellence in Teaching,” “Professor of the Year,” “Most Influential Faculty Member,” and “Distinguished Achievement.”
His impactful contributions extend beyond individual recognition. The Healthcare Engineering Alliance Society he established has earned recognition as one of the “Most Influential Companies & Organizations.” Dr. Chyu’s remarkable accomplishments and dedication have undeniably left an indelible mark on the fields of engineering and healthcare.
According to James P. Bagian, MD, PE, US National Academy of Medicine, US National Academy of Engineering, and former NASA astronaut, “Dr. Chyu has been a pioneer in the field of healthcare engineering and was one of the early advocates for applying engineering practices to efforts to enhance the delivery of healthcare.”
“Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu may have already secured a historical position in the development of healthcare engineering,” noted Fazle Hussain, Ph.D., member of the World Academy of Science and the US National Academy of Engineering.
