Niilo Saranummi

Niilo Saranummi is research professor at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. He received his Dr.Tech. degree in biomedical engineering at Tampere University of Technology in 1976. He started at VTT in 1975 advancing through different positions and in 1982 he was appointed director of VTT’s Medical Engineering Laboratory with a staff of 70 full time employees. Since VTT’s reorganization in 1994, he has worked in VTT as a research professor. In 2007-8 he worked at the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (www.tekes.fi) on a special assignment where the aim was to create a Strategic Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation in the area of health and well-being (www.salwe.fi). He has worked abroad on various occasions (MRC, Northwick Park Hospital 1978, Eindhoven University of Technology 1980, UN / Economic Commission of Europe 1985). His research interests include ICT applications for personalized health and disease management, interoperability and innovation, technology policy setting and technology transfer. He has published over 150 papers and chapters in peer-reviewed international publications.

He has served as an expert in the planning and running of Finnish and Nordic technology programs in the area of health technology. He has participated as co-coordinator and partner in more than 30 projects in the Framework Programs of R&D funded by the European Union in the areas of biomedical engineering and ICT for health. He was active in the standardization of medical devices in the late 70’s through early 80’s (IEC TC 62) and in health informatics (CEN TC 251) in the early 90’s. He is co-founder and chair of HL7 Finland 1996-2010, a society affiliated to Health Level Seven (www.hl7.fi).

In 1991-94 he served as President of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering, IFMBE (www.ifmbe.org) and in 1994-97 as President of the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (IUPESM). In 1999 he was appointed by IFMBE to lead an ad-hoc committee with the charge to look into the possibilities of establishing a European umbrella organization that could cater for the needs of the European MBE community. In 2003, in the inauguration meeting of the European Alliance for Medical and Biological Engineering and Science (EAMBES, www.eambes.org) he was elected interim President (2003-4). In 2009-2012 he was the Chair of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering.

He was Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions of Information Technology in Biomedicine, T-ITB (2002-7). He chaired IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society’s Technical Committee on Information Technology for Health (2007-10). He is an Area Editor for IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering (2008-present).

He is Fellow of Finnish Academies of Technology (www.facte.com), International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (www.ifmbe.org) and American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (www.aimbe.org) and IEEE (www.ieee.org). He was the recipient of IFMBE’s Otto Schmitt award in 2006.