Two Faculty Inducted into AIMBE College of Fellows

Northwestern Engineering’s Joshua Leonard and Jonathan Rivnay have been inducted into the 2025 class of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Fellows. 

Election to the AIMBE College of Fellows is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to medical and biological engineers, comprising the top 2 percent of engineers in these fields. College membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering and medicine research, practice, or education and to the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of medical and biological engineering or developing/implementing innovative approaches to bioengineering education.

Leonard and Rivnay are among the 172 engineers in the College of Fellows Class of 2025, who were formally inducted during AIMBE’s Annual Event on March 31 in Arlington, Virginia.

The professors are also part of a multi-institutional team of researchers that received up to $34 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to fast-track the development of a low-cost bioelectronic implant to treat patients with obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

Joshua Leonard

Leonard, professor of chemical and biological engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering, was recognized by the AIMBE “for the development of innovative technologies and conceptual frameworks enabling design-driven engineering in mammalian synthetic biology.”

A founding member of Northwestern’s Center for Synthetic Biology, Leonard works to develop novel biological systems that perform customized, sophisticated functions for applications in biotechnology and medicine, helping to build the now-vibrant field of mammalian synthetic biology. Employing methods ranging from biomolecular engineering to computation-driven design, his team develops technologies including programmable cell-based devices for treating chronic disease, including synthetic receptors and genetic programs, and novel gene therapy platforms based upon bioengineered nanoscale vesicles.

Jonathan Rivnay

Rivnay, professor of biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering, was cited “for making pioneering contributions in the field of conducting polymers, bioelectronics, and medical devices.”

Rivnay engineers organic and biohybrid bioelectronic materials, devices, and systems for interfacing between the complex world of biology and traditional optoelectronics. His interests involve understanding the unique active properties of organic (small molecule and polymeric) materials, including mixed ionic-electronic conduction and actuation and utilizing their strengths for sensing, stimulation, and signal processing in biomedical settings. His recent efforts aim to combine components of engineered biological systems and bioelectronics to achieve biohybrid living pharmacies and biohybrid robotics. Among his research projects, Rivnay is developing a wireless, fully implantable device that will provide personalized therapy to treat ovarian cancer.