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by Megan Gilge, Tech Topics editorial assistant

The Department of Biomedical Engineering has a new chair.

Michael Neuman has a PhD in Electrical Engineering and is also an MD. But, he said, "Don't come to me for medical care unless you need help delivering a baby. It's been a long time since I did any clinical work."

He comes to MTU from the Memphis Joint Program in Biomedical Engineering, a collaboration between the University of Tennessee and the University of Memphis, where he was Herff Professor of Biomedical Engineering. While there, he emphasized the value of clinical experience for biomedical engineers, and, when teaching medical students, stressed "underlying principles and how to interpret results, not just read them." He said it's easy to look at a machine and "not look at the baby and see that it's blue."

Neuman received his PhD from Case Institute of Technology in 1966 and afterwards taught electronics in Case's electrical engineering department. He developed a strong interest in medical electronics, which was a new field. He was particularly intrigued by fetal monitoring, but he knew nothing about obstetrics.

"My colleagues teased me," he said, "and asked me why I didn't go to medical school. So I did." He even was able to "take" a course he taught, an elective course on medical instrumentation available to students in the medical school.

Neuman enjoys using his engineering skills to solve practical problems. As a medical student, he was sometimes required to stay up all night to monitor air tubes in a neonatal ward. He had to make sure that water condensing from humidified air didn't block the tubes or drip on the babies' faces. He replaced an existing tube with a new one into which he inserted a hypodermic needle attached to a bottle. As he had hoped, the water dripped through the needle into a bottle beneath it rather than blocking the tube, and he was able to sleep.

He completed his MD in 1974 and began teaching in the medical school, in the Departments of Reproductive Biology and Biomedical Engineering.

Neuman actually taught his first class at Tech last spring. He was asked if he could move to Houghton immediately when he accepted the position last December, but he couldn't move his farm animals in January. So he taught the course, Biomedical Instrumentation, from Tennessee. His video lecture schedule was once delayed when Memphis was shut down due to a half inch of snow.

He hopes to make biomedical engineering one of Michigan Tech's strengths. Since Tech doesn't have clinical facilities, he plans to build relationships with local medical facilities. He also hopes to work with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering as well as other departments on projects such as the microfabrication of structures to be used in biomedical sensors.

Neuman edited the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering from 1989 to 1996 and is currently editor of the British journal "Physiological Measurement."

He and his wife, Judy, live on a farm in Portage Township with his three dogs, four horses, two goats and four cats.