Christopher H. Contag, PhD

Department and Unit Leadership

• Director, Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering
• Chair, Biomedical Engineering

• Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering
• Michigan State University College of Human Medicine

Bio

Christopher H. Contag, PhD, is the Director of the Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering, and the Chair of Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Contag is the founding chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and inaugural director of the Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering at Michigan State University. He is also professor emeritus in the Department of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Dr. Contag received his Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, and his PhD in microbiology from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University and joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 where he was professor in the Departments of Pediatrics, Radiology, Bioengineering and Microbiology & Immunology. In 2016, Dr. Contag joined the faculty of Michigan State University.

A pioneer in the in the field of molecular imaging, Dr. Contag is developing imaging approaches aimed at revealing molecular processes in living subjects, including humans, and advancing therapeutic strategies through imaging. He is a founding member and past president of the Society for Molecular Imaging (SMI), and recipient of the Achievement Award from the SMI and the Britton Chance Award from SPIE, the International Society for Optics and Photonics, for his fundamental contributions to optics. Dr. Contag is a fellow of the World Molecular Imaging Society (WMIS) and the recent past President of WMIS.