Georgia Tech Provost and Vice President Michael E. Thomas
and the Emory Dean of Medicine Thomas J. Lawley established
an Advisory Committee of Georgia Tech and Emory faculty
to address new opportunities in biomedical engineering.
The Committee met initially on June 2, 1997 and was charged
to develop a set of recommendations for an innovative and
unique Department of Biomedical Engineering that is joint
with Georgia Tech and Emory and that will enable both institutions
to maximize research and educational opportunities in fields
of intersecting biomedical interest. The Committee was required
to report to Drs. Thomas and Lawley no later than August
15, 1997.
The biomedical engineering
program is named in honor of Wallace Henry Coulter
Recognized as one of the most influential inventors of
the twentieth century, Wallace Coulter studied electronics
as a student at Georgia Tech in the early 1930s. Mr. Coulter
developed the "Coulter Principle," a
theory that gave birth to both the automated hematology
industry and the field of industrial fine particle counting.
His "Coulter Counter," a blood cell analyzer,
is used to perform one of medicine's most often-requested
and informative diagnostic tests, the complete blood
count. With his entrepreneurial insight, Mr. Coulter positioned
the Coulter Corporation as the undisputed leader in the
diagnostic industry. In October 1997, the Coulter Corporation
was acquired by Beckman Instruments, Inc., and is now
known as Beckman-Coulter, Inc. For more information, see www.whcf.org
The biomedical engineering building
on the Georgia Tech campus is named in honor of Uncas
A. Whitaker
Born
to a Missouri legislator, Uncas Whitaker spent his boyhood
and received his early education in Missouri. After receiving
mechanical and electrical engineering degrees from Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and Carnegie Institute of Technology,
respectively, and a law degree from the McKinley School of
Law, in 1941 he founded the company that became AMP, Inc.
In less than twenty years he developed his company into one
of the giants of American industry. In the early 1960's, Mr.
Whitaker and others envisioned a thriving new field that combined
engineering and medicine to improve health care--biomedical
engineering. Realization of this vision was aided by his many
contributions during his lifetime and the establishment of
the Whitaker Foundation shortly after his death in 1975.
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