Rohit Bhargava

Phillip and Ann Sharp Director, Cancer Center at Illinois

Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering

Areas of Research

3D Imaging, 3D Printing, Artificial Intelligence, Bioengineering, Biomedical Imaging Technology, Breast Cancer, Cancer Diagnostics, Cancer Imaging, Cancer Survivors, Cancer Therapies, Colon/Colorectal Cancer, Data Mining, Disease Prevention and Control, Imaging, Machine Learning, Nanoparticles, Nanotechnology, Prostate Cancer, Tumor Microenvironment, Ultrasound

Research Program and Theme

Program: Cancer Technology and Data Science
Theme: Cancer Imaging

Research Focus

Rohit Bhargava serves as the Phillip and Ann Sharp Director of the Cancer Center at Illinois, as a Professor of Bioengineering and Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His fundamental research contributions have helped develop the field of infrared chemical imaging, which allows the measurement of the chemical composition of every pixel in an image of a sample. The technology has been translated to improve cancer diagnoses using advanced artificial intelligence tools. Using a combination of advanced manufacturing techniques and novel imaging and computing, another major direction in his laboratories is to advance the production of physical tumor models and computational mimics of tumor cells. Rohit has also served to connect the research community in new directions. He helped grow the Illinois Bioengineering department as its first external hire and founded the Cancer Center at Illinois — a basic cancer research center at the convergence of engineering and oncology.

Bhargava is a leading national proponent of the emerging field of Cancer Engineering. Rohit holds a B.Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, as well as a doctoral degree from Case Western Reserve University, and he conducted postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health prior to joining the faculty at Illinois. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and several disciplinary societies, including BMES, AIMBE, Optica, and SAS. His research has been recognized internationally, including by the Lippincott Award, SAS Gold Medal, and Meggers Awards.

He has been recognized by the University of Illinois with its Distinguished Leadership Award, the Grainger College of Engineering Dean’s Awards for Research Innovation and Impact, and the Rose and Everett Awards for Exceptional Teaching.

Learn more about Rohit Bhargava’s lab.