Laura Roa

Laura M. Roa is full professor of Control Systems Engineering and Automation at the University of Seville in Spain. She was born in Cádiz, Spain, and received the Ph.D degree (cum laude) from the University of Seville, Spain, in 1980. In 1988, she founded the Biomedical Engineering Research Group at the University of Seville, which she is in charge of. In 2006, this group was recognized as a founding group of the Spanish Network Center of Biomedical Research in Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN).

She has been author of more than 340 papers, including journal papers, peer reviewed conference papers, book chapters, and books. She has directed different Ph.D Thesis and projects funded by various public Spanish organizations and private companies. The research topics link different disciplines, including physiology, mathematical modeling, systems engineering and integration of information technologies. Her research activities have covered development of computational models for complex physiological systems, the design of intelligent algorithms for clinical applications, dosing the therapies for burn and renal patients using optimal control techniques, and information technologies and communications applied to telemedicine, homecare technologies and acessibility for elderly and disabled people. Her current research lines are focused on multiscale computational modeling for the detection of biological and pathological events, Smart devices for assisted living environments, Integration Architectures for health and social services, and Development of electromagnetism methods and techniques applied to solve bionanotechnologies problems.

She has served the Spanish Society of Biomedical Engineering (SEIB) in different positions of its Administrative Committee: Vice President (1987-89), Secretary General (1989-2004), President (2005-). She has also served in the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) as Representative of Region 8 during the term 2002-2006, advisory board member of the International Council on Medical & Care Compunetics (ICMCC) (2004-), member of the IFMBE Workgroup on Global Citizen Safety and Security, member of the Interim Council of the European Alliance for Medical and Biological Engineering Sciences (EAMBES) (1998-2002), member of the IEEE-EMBS Fellow Committee (2008-2009), and member of the IEEE Fellow Committee (2010-2012).

She is member of the Editorial Board of the IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, and of the International Journal of System Dynamics Applications.

Dr. Roa is a Fellow of the IEEE, Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), Fellow of the Intenational Academy for Medical and Biological Engineering Sciences (IAMBES), Fellow of EAMBES and a member of the Royal Medical Academy of Seville, Spain.