Gordon Kennedy

Anie Philip, PhD is a tenured Full Professor in the Department of Surgery at McGill University, Canada. She is also the Director of Plastic Surgery Research and Director of Plastic Suregry REsearch at McGill University, and President of the Skin Research Group of Canada. Dr Philip received her PhD from McGill and completed her post-doctoral training at the National Research Council Canada. Over the past 2 decades, her research program has focused on the molecular mechanisms of skin and cartilage repair and regeneration, and squamous cell carcinoma. Her research has been continuously funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and in addition, she recives funding from NSERC Canada and the Department of Defense USA. Her team’s recent contributions include the discovery and functional characterization of a novel TGF-beta co-receptor, identification of unique regulatory mechanisms by TGF-beta co-receptors in skin cells, chondrocytes and in squamous cell carcinoma. The tranlsational focus of her research is on the development of novel anti-fibrotic and anti-cancer peptides for which her team holds several patents.

Kyle P. Quinn, PhD, is a tenured professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Arkansas and director of the NIH-funded Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center. He is also a visiting professor at Tufts University. Effective August 2025, we will be joining Tufts University as a tenured professor of biomedical engineering and director of the Tufts Advanced Microscopic Imaging Center. Dr. Quinn received his B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and earned his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. As a postdoctoral fellow at Tufts University, he was awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (F32) and Pathway to Independence Award (K99) from the NIH. Since joining the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arkansas in 2015, he has received funding through the NIH R00, R21, R01, and P20 mechanisms, DoD STTR and CDMRP projects, and the NSF CAREER award. In 2021, he established the Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center (AIMRC), which integrates optical imaging, bioenergetics, and data science approaches to solve biomedical research problems involving cell and tissue metabolism. His overall research interests are in developing and utilizing non-invasive quantitative optical methods to characterize the spatiotemporal patterns of disease progression and tissue repair processes. His research group is exploring how label-free multiphoton microscopy and artificial intelligence can be used to establish optical biomarkers for use in characterizing wound healing and aging.

Dr. Song Hu received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University and Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. His current research focuses on the development of photoacoustic and optical technologies for high-resolution structural, functional, metabolic, and molecular imaging in vivo. Dr. Hu has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles. His publications, including the 4th and 6th most cited articles in the Journal of Biomedical Optics since 2009 and the 5th most cited article in Optics Letters since 2007, have accumulated over 16,000 citations. Dr. Hu is a recipient of the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award (2014), the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (NSF CAREER) Award (2018), and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Frontiers of Imaging Award (2020).