R. Michael van Dam

Michael received his bachelor's degree in Engineering Physics from Queen's University (Kingston, ON, Canada), and then received his master's degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto (Toronto, ON, Canada), where he worked under the direction of Prof. Zvonko G. Vranesic (Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering) on communication networks in multiprocessor systems (NUMAchine Multiprocessor Project). Michael obtained his doctoral degree in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, CA, USA), where he worked under the direction of Prof. Stephen R. Quake (Department of Applied Physics; now at Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University) on developing chemically-resistant microfluidic devices for chemical synthesis applications. After graduate school, he worked under the direction of Prof. James R. Heath (Department of Chemistry, California Institute of Technology) on microfluidic devices for the synthesis of positron-emission tomography (PET) probes, and transitioned to a Senior Scientist role at Siemens Molecular Imaging Biomarker Research to commercialize this work. He joined the UCLA Department of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology in 2007.