David Elad

David Elad is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Tel Aviv University since 1985. He received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering on 1973, M.Sc. and D.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering on 1978 and 1982, all from the Technion, Haifa, Israel. He was then awarded the Rothschild and Bantrell post-doctoral fellowships at Imperial College London and M.I.T.

David pioneered computational studies of biofluid transport phenomena in the nasal cavity in the late 80’s. In the early 90’s he established a comprehensive research program in bioengineering of human reproduction, both at Tel Aviv University. He developed his expertise in the fields of Respiratory Biomechanics and Reproductive Bioengineering, from complete organs all the way to the cellular levels. The respiratory studies included integrative assessment of respiratory muscles, transport phenomena in the human nose, objective noninvasive evaluation of nasal function and mechano-transduction of nasal epithelial cells cultured under air-liquid interface conditions, including effects of air-pollution. The reproductive studies included the role of uterine peristalsis in early human life, pre-implantation embryo transport after IVF, feto-maternal blood circulations in the placenta, transport of nutrition, pharmaceuticals and carcinogenic materials across a tissue engineered placental barrier, mechano-transduction of cultured ovarian cancer cells and biomechanics of infant breastfeeding.

Dr. Elad published 115 publications in peer-review journals and was the leading editor of 4 special journal issues in reproductive bioengineering, respiratory biomechanics and biofluid mechanics. He has played a leading role in the worldwide evolvement and promotion of Reproductive Bioengineering. In 2005 he organized the first session of Reproductive Bioengineering in the BMES annual meeting in Baltimore, and the mini-symposium in the 12th International conference on BME in Singapore. These initial efforts lead later to tracks of sessions in the 5th and 6th World Congress of Biomechanics in Munich and Singapore, respectively, and an independent conference in Austria in 2008. He was also appointed as an associate editor for the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering in order to handle articles in reproductive engineering.

David has been a visiting scholar at Imperial College London, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Drexel University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Toronto, City College New York and Columbia University. He is a member of the World Council for Biomechanics (2002-14) and a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2004) and the Biomedical Engineering Society, USA (2005).

David is also an active member of the BME community in Israel. He served for 10 years as the academic secretary of the Israel Society for medical and Biological Engineering (2007-10). In 2000 he developed the program for undergraduate studies in BME at Tel Aviv University.