May 14, 2009
News View Article
Pitt Bioengineering Chair Designated Distinguished ProfessorBorovetz's appointment to this professorship recognizes his performance excellence at Pitt as well as his national stature in the filed of engineering.
Harvey Borovetz, Chair of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Bioengineering, has been designated Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering in recognition of internationally-recognized scholarship and leadership and contribution to the field of bioengineering. Appointment to distinguished professorship is among the highest honors the University bestows upon a faculty member. Borovetz also holds the Robert L. Hardesty Professorship in the Department of Surgery and is Professor, Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering.
Under Borovetz’s leadership since 2002, the number of full-time faculty in the Pitt Department of Bioengineering has risen to 20, with more than 100 other faculty holding secondary academic appointments in the Department of Bioengineering, including more than two dozen physicians. Pitt’s Department of Bioengineering, which is a member of a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center consortium, is also ranked among the top five public bioengineering programs in the U.S. News and World Report graduate school rankings.
Borovetz's current research interests are focused on the design and clinical utilization of cardiovascular organ replacements for both adult and particularly pediatric patients. Since 1986, he has served first as the founding director and currently as the bioengineering faculty liaison for the University's Clinical Bioengineering Program in Mechanical Circulatory Support, a one-of-a-kind program that supports patients who are implanted with a left ventricular assist device, or biventricular assist devices, as a bridge-to-cardiac transplantation or bridge-to-recovery. This work in mechanical circulatory support followed Borovetz's early efforts in which he worked hand-in-hand with cardiac surgeons in applying extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) to successfully treat a large series of neonates in respiratory distress.
