Stephen A Boppart

Stephen Boppart is a Professor and Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering with appointments in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He is also a full-time faculty member at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. His Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory is focused on developing novel optical biomedical diagnostic and imaging technologies and translating them into clinical applications.

Boppart received his PhD in Medical and Electrical Engineering from MIT, his MD from Harvard Medical School, and his residency training at the University of Illinois in Internal Medicine. Since joining the faculty at UIUC in 2000, he has published over 475 invited and contributed publications, delivered over 1000 invited and contributed presentations, and has over 55 patents related to optical biomedical imaging technology. He has mentored over 200 undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate interdisciplinary researchers.

Boppart has co-founded four start-up companies to commercialize and disseminate his optical technologies for biomedical imaging. He established and served as Director of Imaging at Illinois, a university-wide program to integrate imaging science, technology, and applications across multiple modalities and fields, and is currently Director of the GSK Center for Optical Molecular Imaging, supported by an academic-clinical-industry partnership with GlaxoSmithKline. In support of a national NIH Biomedical Technology Research Resource, Boppart is directing the recently awarded NIBIB P41 Center for Label-free Imaging and Multiscale Biophotonics (CLIMB). Boppart has been a strong advocate for the integration of engineering, technology, and medicine to advance human health and our healthcare systems. He played an active role in the initiation, visioning, launch, and growth of the new engineering-based Carle Illinois College of Medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and served as Executive Associate Dean and Chief Diversity Officer. Currently he serves as the Director for the university’s Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute, and as the Illinois Co-Chair of the Mayo Clinic & Illinois Alliance for Technology-Based Healthcare. Through all these efforts he is recognized for developing new programs for research and education in technology-inspired health innovation.

He was recognized by MIT’s Technology Review Magazine as one of the Top 100 Young Innovators in the World for his development of medical technology in 2002, and the Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award from Optica in 2009. More recently, he received the international Hans Sigrist Prize in the field of Diagnostic Laser Medicine, the SPIE Biophotonics Innovator Award, and was elected as a member of the National Academy of Inventors. He is a Fellow of Optica, AAAS, IEEE, SPIE, AIMBE, and BMES. In 2025, he received Optica’s Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award, “For pioneering research contributions, leadership, and entrepreneurship in developing and translating novel label-free biophotonics and biomedical optical imaging technologies for clinical applications and biological discovery.”