Alumnus Dorin Comaniciu and ECE Industry Advisory Board Member Elected to the NAE Class of 2025
Dorin Comaniciu, Siemens Healthineers senior vice president for artificial intelligence and digital innovation, joined Siemens Corporate Research in 1999 after earning his doctoral degree in electrical and computer engineering from the School of Engineering. He held key scientific and leadership roles at Siemens before assuming his current position in 2018.
He has recently been elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Class of 2025 – a prestigious professional honor bestowed on a select group of engineers who have made outstanding contributions to the fields of engineering practice, research, or education. Along with other members of the NAE Class of 2025, he joins a group of world-class engineering leaders from academia, business, and government.
Comaniciu will be formally inducted during the NAE’s annual meeting in October for his pioneering contributions to “diagnostic imaging and image-guided therapy, leading to better diagnosis and treatment for numerous patients.”
The honor is especially meaningful to Comaniciu, who says, “As an engineer, you dream to change the world and bring to life and translate innovations that make it a better place. To be elected to the National Academy of Engineering is like a dream come true, where your peers recognize your contributions to the world.”
A Celebrated Innovator
His advocacy for developing technologies to save and enhance lives while addressing critical issues in global health is evident in his work in computational imaging, machine intelligence, and precision medicine, resulting in the development of countless clinical products that have revolutionized the quality of patient care the world over by providing accurate, effective solutions for detecting, quantifying, and treating disease.
A case in point: his team’s radiation therapy planning solutions, which Comaniciu is particularly proud of. “The AI-based contouring for radiation therapy is being used daily in more than 800 cancer centers, helping the precise and efficient delineations of organs at risk and clinical target volumes for more than half a million cancer patients per year worldwide,” he reports.
It is just one of his many significant innovations and research results that include more than 550 granted patents and 350 peer-reviewed papers reflecting his scientific interest in machine learning, robust computer vision, medical imaging and biomedical informatics.
A recipient of the 2016 School of Engineering Medal of Excellence as a Distinguished Alumnus in Research, Comaniciu is currently sharing his expertise with SoE as a member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Industry Advisory Board.
“We are so proud of ECE distinguished alumnus Dorin Comaniciu on this well-earned and truly deserved honor from the National Academy of Engineering,” says professor and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering chair Yingying Chen. Her sentiments are echoed by WINLAB director and ECE distinguished professor Narayan Mandayam, who states, “We are all so proud of your outstanding accomplishments, Dorin.”
