Dr. Tromberg is the Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) at NIH where he oversees research programs focused on developing, translating, and commercializing engineering, physical science, and computational technologies in biology and medicine. He leads NIBIB’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics technology initiative (RADx Tech), established in 2020 to meet an urgent need for increasing SARS-COV-2 testing capacity & performance, and broadened in 2023 to include a wide range of over the counter (OTC) and point of care (POC) medical devices. His laboratory, the Section on Biomedical Optics (SBO) in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), develops portable, bedside, non-contact, and wearable technologies for quantitative sensing and imaging of tissue composition and metabolism.
Prior to joining NIH in January 2019, Dr. Tromberg was a professor of biomedical engineering and surgery at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). During his 30-year academic career Dr. Tromberg served in multiple leadership roles, including, director of UCI’s Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic (BLIMC), PI of the Laser Microbeam and Medical Program (LAMMP), an NIH National Biomedical Technology Center, and co-founder of UC Irvine’s Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Dr. Tromberg received his undergraduate training in chemistry from Vanderbilt University (1979) and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry from the University of Tennessee (1988) where he was a U.S. Department of Energy/Oak Ridge Associated Universities Fellow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He was a Hewitt Foundation Photomedicine Fellow at the BLIMC and joined the UC Irvine faculty in 1990.
Dr. Tromberg specializes in the development of optics and photonics technologies for biomedical imaging and therapy. He has co-authored more than 450 publications and holds 27 patents in new technology development as well as bench-to-bedside clinical translation, validation, and commercialization of devices. Dr. Tromberg has trained more than 80 students and fellows, is co-founder of the biophotonics company, Modulim, Inc, and has served on numerous advisory boards in academia, government, and the private sector.
Honors and awards include the Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award from Optica, the Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award from the International Society of Optical Engineering (SPIE), and the Gold Medal from the Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research. He is a member of the National Academies of Medicine and Engineering, and a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), SPIE, Optica, and the National Academy of Inventors.