Case inventors honored

Five university professors, including two Case alumni, will be enshrined this summer into the National Academy of Inventors, which recognizes the nation’s top academic inventors.

Christian “Chris” Zorman, MS ’91, PhD ’94, Michael Suster ’02, PhD ’11, and their colleagues have been selected for the academy as senior members, a step below fellow.

Suster is a research assistant professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering whose research focuses on biomedical microsystems and blood disorders. He’s the

co-inventor of the ClotChip, a hand-held sensor that can quickly assess the clotting ability of a person’s blood. It received FDA Breakthrough Device designation.

Zorman is the senior assistant dean of research at the Case School of Engineering and the F. Alex Nason Professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering. A specialist in the fabrication of micro and nanosystems, Zorman is a widely published research leader who holds 13 U.S. patents.

Joining the Case engineers in the academy are three inventive colleagues:

Shuo Li is the Leonard Case, Jr. endowed chair in engineering and a professor in the Department of Computer and Data Sciences

David Wald is the John D. Crissman and Francis D. Drake Professor in Pathology at the CWRU School of Medicine

Niloy Bhadra is an emeritus associate professor at MetroHealth Medical Center and was an associ-ate professor at CWRU School of Medicine

Michael Oakes, CWRU’s senior vice president for research and technology management, said the recognition illustrates the importance of federal research funding.

“The NAI’s announcement is a terrific recognition of our faculty’s outstanding discoveries and achievements,” he said in a statement. “Their work exemplifies how research universities can leverage federal grants, including overhead funding, to find important solutions to real-world problems.”

The five faculty members will be inducted at NAI’s annual conference June 23-26 in Atlanta, Georgia.