Javier Jo, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been honored with the 2014 Association of Former Students College Level Teaching Award.
Each fall, The Association of Former Students honors outstanding faculty members for their dedication to teaching. Since the program's inception in 1982, recipients have been recognized for their talent, expertise and devotion in conveying knowledge to students. Recipients of the award are teachers who ensure academic rigor in their courses and recognize their responsibility in motivating and contributing to the overall development of their students.
Jo, who joined Texas A&M in 2006, teaches undergraduate courses in electronic circuits, digital signal processing, and statistics, applied to biomedical engineering. His teaching approach focuses on providing sound theoretical background with a variety of opportunities to demonstrate real-world applications. He also has supervised the research work of more than 30 graduate and undergraduate students since 2006.
Jo’s research program focuses on developing optical technologies for molecular imaging that can be broadly applied in basic and clinical research. Research efforts funded by the National Institutes of Health include developing clinical compatible optical systems that will have the potential to be used for the early diagnosis of atherosclerosis (in collaboration with the Texas Heart Institute in Houston) and oral cancer (in collaboration with the Texas A&M University Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas).
In addition, Jo is actively involved in creating different academic and research opportunities between the Department of Biomedical Engineering and a number of academic institutions in Latin America. Specifically, he is co-advising several graduate students from Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi (San Luis Potosi, Mexico) and has established an undergraduate internship program with the Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico City, Mexico). He also is exploring other opportunities with academic institutions in Brazil, Peru and Costa Rica.
Jo received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from The Catholic University of Peru. He received his master’s degree in electrical engineering and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Southern California.