The Support Team
Dr. Elie Karam was born in a small village in the El-Koura region in North Lebanon. Since early childhood, and partly due to growing up amidst the Lebanese civil war period, Elie found himself dreaming about changes towards better living conditions through revolutionary changes in the educational system. Then, and when getting ready to engage in real world responsibilities as a high school teacher after graduating from the American University of Beirut, Elie was forced to travel to the United States to continue his higher education. Elie chose to study Biomedical Engineering acknowledging the need in his country for the advancement of technology, biotechnology in particular.
Upon graduation with a PhD degree from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, The Lebanese conditions prevented him from immediate return. However, he was accepted then as Research Associate at the NASA Johnson Space Center (Space Biomedical Program), in Houston, Texas, with a two-year Post-Doctoral grant from the National Research Council. For a Lebanese citizen from a little northern village, working at the Johnson Space Center in Houston looked like a dream. There Dr. Elie Karam worked on the modeling of the cardiovascular system under the gravitational effects and the space adaptation mechanism.
In 1994, Dr. Karam chose to return to Lebanon to join the newly established University of Balamand. There, he got involved in the establishment of the Faculty of Engineering, the development of programs and facilities, and working with students on professional development. Along his scholastic career at the University of Balamand, Dr. Karam got appointed Acting Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, he is currently the Acting Dean of the Issam Fares Faculty of Technology.
Dr. Karam is the author and co-author of more than 50 journal papers and conference articles on cardiovascular system modeling; biomedical instrumentation, signal and image processing. He has supervised a number of PhD and MS dissertations and theses. Dr. Karam is a member of a number national and international professional societies and organizations.
Testimonial
I had the pleasure to act as reviewer of a few projects during the first couple seasons of the Stars of Science. Now it is more fun and thrilling coming back on stage as a project mentor working with an enthusiastic young lady who has dreamed about this experience since her childhood!
