V. “Chandra” Chandrasekar and Susan James, both faculty members in the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering, have been named Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors, the organization announced Dec. 8.
The NAI Fellows Program highlights academic inventors “who have demonstrated a spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.” Election to NAI Fellow is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors.
Chandrasekar expert in radar
Chandrasekar, a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is also a fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere. He is a leading expert in the fields of weather radar and radar signal processing, and he holds 35 patents in radar system design, radar network development, radiofrequency communications, and more.
For close to four decades, he has worked in geoscience and remote sensing technologies to advance understanding of land, oceans, atmosphere and space. Chandrasekar is also a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the International Union of Radio Science. In 2016, he received the honor of being knighted by the government of Finland in recognition of his research collaborations and contributions there. He also recently received the IEEE Distinguished Achievement Award.
James expert in biopolymers
James is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the School of Biomedical Engineering, and the School of Advanced Materials Discovery. She has leading expertise in the field of biopolymer materials, many of which are in clinical use as knee implants in over 1,000 patients.
Much of her work is on hyaluronan-enhanced plastics, which do not cause blood clotting and platelet activation as do most synthetic plastics. She is developing hyaluronan-enhanced flexible leaflets for heart valve prostheses, as well as new materials for vascular grafts. James holds 22 patents for various biomedical technologies, and is co-founder and chief operating officer of YoungHeartValve, LLC, a startup company developing heart valve technologies.
At CSU, James serves as Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and as chair of the President’s Council on Culture.
NAI Fellows
NAI Fellows hold more than 42,700 issued U.S. patents, which have generated over 13,000 licensed technologies and companies, and created more than 36 million jobs. In addition, over $2.2 trillion in revenue has been generated based on NAI Fellow discoveries.
The 2020 Fellow class represents 115 research universities and governmental and nonprofit research institutes worldwide. They collectively hold over 4,700 issued U.S. patents. Among the 2020 Fellows are 24 recipients of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, six recipients of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and two Nobel Laureates, as well as recipients of other honors and distinctions. Their collective body of research covers a range of scientific disciplines including biomedical engineering, computer engineering, materials science, and physics.
The class of Fellows will be inducted at the 2021 Fellows Induction Ceremony at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the National Academy of Inventors this June in Tampa, Florida.
The complete list of 2020 NAI Fellows is available here.
Other CSU faculty members previously elected as Fellows are Edward Hoover and George Seidel, both of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
National Academy of Inventors
The National Academy of Inventors is a member organization comprising U.S. and international universities, and governmental and nonprofit research institutes, with over 4,000 individual inventor members and Fellows spanning more than 250 institutions worldwide. It was founded in 2010 to recognize and encourage inventors with patents issued from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation, encourage the disclosure of intellectual property, educate and mentor innovative students, and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society.
The NAI has a close collaborative relationship with the USPTO. It is one of three honorific organizations, along with the National Medals and National Inventors Hall of Fame, working closely with the USPTO on many discovery and innovation support initiatives. The NAI publishes the multidisciplinary journal, Technology and Innovation.
More information: www.academyofinventors.org
