IEEE Elects Ramsey Badawi as Fellow

Ramsey Badawi, a professor of biomedical engineering and radiology, has joined an elite company. The world’s largest technical organization, IEEE, has elected Badawi to the level of fellow, reserved for innovators who have made extraordinary contributions to engineering, science and technology.

“I have been a member of the IEEE for nearly three decades and have benefited hugely from the guidance of IEEE Fellows over the years, all giants in the field. To find myself now listed among them is quite astonishing,” Badawi said. 

IEEE has recognized Badawi for his contributions to the development, implementation and application of the world’s first total-body positron emission tomography scanner, EXPLORER.

Positron emission tomography, commonly known as PET, is a technique for creating three-dimensional images of processes in the body. It’s essential for detecting diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and heart conditions. However, traditional PET scanners are only able to visualize an area the size of a common school ruler, meaning doctors would need to take many images of a patient to get a full picture of their health.

EXPLORER addresses this shortcoming. First installed in 2019 at UC Davis Health following research and development from Badawi and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biomedical Engineering Simon R. Cherry, the scanner can instantly capture images of a patient’s full body. It also provides significantly higher resolution than conventional PET scanners, enabling new biomedical research and clinical practices.

Currently, Badawi and his colleagues are using EXPLORER to investigate previously intractable medical questions, such as how all the organs of the body affect each other during metabolic disorders and connections between the liver and the brain in dementias.

Badawi received his Bachelor of Science in physics and Master of Science in astronomy from the University of Sussex in 1987 and 1988, respectively. He received his Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of London in 1998. He joined UC Davis Medical Center as a nuclear medicine physicist in 2004, a position he holds to this day. He is also vice-chair for research at the UC Davis Department of Radiology and co-director of the EXPLORER Molecular Imaging Center.