Pioneering minimally invasive precision diagnosis and therapy with clinical applications

Prof. Hongen Liao is a Chair Professor and Dean of the School of Biomedical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, recognized as a National Distinguished Professor in China. He received his B.S. degree in mechanics and engineering sciences from Peking University, Beijing, China, in 1996, and the M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in biomedical precision engineering from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 2000 and 2003, respectively. He was a Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). From 2004, he became a faculty member at the Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2007. During the summer of 2006, he was a Visiting Researcher at Harvard Medical School. He has been selected as a National Distinguished Professor in China since 2010. Since 2011, he has been a Full Professor at the School of Medicine and the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tsinghua University, China. He served as a member of the Tsinghua University Tenure Committee, Vice Dean of the School of Medicine, Academic Leader and Deputy Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. In 2023, he became a Chair Professor and Dean of the School of Biomedical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

As a pioneer in minimally invasive precision diagnosis and therapy, he has revolutionized 3D medical imaging and surgical navigation by resolving the persistent "hand-eye discoordination problem" in clinical practice. His groundbreaking innovations include the world’s first autostereoscopic display device with an image depth of over five meters and the spatial see-through surgical navigation. He authored or co-authored more than 400 peer-reviewed articles and proceedings papers, including publication in IEEE Transactions, Nature Photonics, Theranostics, Soft Robotics, Medical Image Analysis, as well as 90 international invited lectures, over 80 patents and 360 conference abstracts. He has been awarded more than 30 major scientific research grants abroad as the Principal Investigator, as well as more than 10 collaborative projects (Co PI, Investigator). His research is well funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and National Key Research and Development Program of China.

Dr. Liao was distinguished by receiving the Government Award [The Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan]. He has also been honored with more than ten awards, including the ERICSSON Young Scientist Award, the IFMBE Young Investigators Awards presented by the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering and the 6th Asian-Pacific Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering, the FUNAI Information Science Award and several Best Paper Awards from various academic societies. In 2017, he was awarded the "Huang Jiasi Biomedical Engineering Award", the highest science and technology award in the field of Biomedical Engineering in China. In 2019, he was appointed as a Chief Science Communication Expert by the Chinese Association for Science and Technology. In 2021, he received the “SID Beijing Chapter Outstanding Contribution Award”.

He is Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering, Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics, Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing, and Editorial Board Member of several international journals. He has served as Associate Editor of International Conference of IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (Since 2008), the Organization Chair of Medical Imaging and Augmented Reality Conference (MIAR) 2008, the Program Chair of the Asian Conference on Computer-Aided Surgery (ACCAS) 2008 and 2009, the Tutorial co-chair of the Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention Conference (MICCAI) 2009, the Publicity Chair of MICCAI 2010, the General Chair of MIAR 2010 and ACCAS 2012, the Workshop Chair of MICCAI 2013, and the General Co-chair of MIAR 2016, ACCAS 2018. Program Chair of International Conference on Display Technology (ICDT) 2019 and IWH 2023. He has served as a President of Asian Society for Computer Aided Surgery and Co-chair of Asian-Pacific Activities Working Group, International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE).