Dr. R. Lyle Hood is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UTSA. He received his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Houston, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at Virginia Tech. He conducted his postdoctoral work at Houston Methodist Research Institute. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, Department of Defense, and National Science Foundation, among others. His work has focused on medical device development, resulting in over forty peer-reviewed articles on the topic from journals including Nanoscale, Lasers in Surgery and Medicine, and the Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology. Dr. Hood has recently been named a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors, and has had the privilege of mentoring many talented graduate and undergraduate students. His expertise includes controlled drug delivery systems, medical fiberoptics, and BioMEMS/NEMS technologies.