The Spotts Lecture

2012 Spotts Lecturer: Kevin E. Bennet

Kevin E. Bennet, chairman of the Division of Engineering, assistant professor of neurologic surgery, and co-director of the Neural Engineering Laboratory at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., will be the featured speaker for the Ohio Northern University Spotts Lecture in the Freed Center for the Performing Arts on Monday, Feb. 13, at 7 p.m.
 
His speech, “Engineering Medical Miracles at Mayo Clinic,” is free and open to the public.
 
The Mayo Clinic’s Division of Engineering, composed of 64 technical staff, is responsible for the development and application of new technology for clinical practice and research. Since the division is embedded within the Mayo Clinic, teams of physicians, surgeons, nurses and technical staff from different medical specialties are brought together with engineers to work collaboratively, develop devices to be tested and utilize the solutions to cure human problems. Major development efforts include wireless physiological monitoring, minimally invasive surgery and deep brain stimulation (DBS).

Bennet’s research interest is the development of in vivo neurotransmitter detection technologies to explore the physiology of DBS. To enhance the efforts of the Mayo Clinic in this area, he has developed collaborations with a number of laboratories, including NASA with nanotechnology and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in functional MRI. Bennet has published more than 18 peer-reviewed articles, many abstracts, and numerous international and national presentations. He has served as an international visiting professor in Korea, Lebanon, Belgium and Australia.

Bennet joined the Mayo Clinic in 1990 with current and past appointments as chair of Strategic Alliances, vice chair of Information Technology Standards and Architecture, Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, and Medical/Industry Relations Committee, as well as chair and membership in various workgroups and taskforces. He also has served as a reviewer of Mayo Clinic Proceedings and the NIH Small Business Innovation Research program.

He has more than 30 years of experience in technology development with organizations such as W.R. Grace & Co., Exxon International and Amoco Chemicals. Bennet has been a consultant to the NIH and served on its site-visit teams. He holds patents concerning semiconductor and optical technology and has founded several technology-based companies.

Bennet received a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School.

Bennet will be introduced by 2003 ONU graduate Dr. Miranda N. Shaw, a senior research engineer in the Advanced Technology Group at Zimmer in Warsaw, Ind. Shaw also is the co-founder and managing partner of Innovaject LLC in Columbia, Mo., an early-stage product development and licensing company that has developed a proprietary, innovative delivery mechanism for the prevention and therapeutic treatment of mastitis in dairy animals. Shaw received her Ph.D. from the Mayo Graduate School of the Mayo Clinic, where she worked with Bennet.
 

About the Spotts Lecture

The Spotts Lecture series was established in 1986 to bring distinguished speakers to ONU on an annual basis to inform students of the probable professional conditions and challenges that engineers and computer scientists will face in the future.

Dr. Merhyle F. Spotts, BSME '23, Hon. D. '81, sponsor of the lecture series, graduated from Ohio Northern's College of Engineering in 1923. After 10 years in heavy and light industry, he obtained a master's degree from Ohio State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He taught at the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins University and Northwestern University. He wrote extensively for technical journals and was the author of four books, including Design of Machine Elements, now in its sixth edition and in worldwide use. He was the recipient of many awards and honors, among them an honorary doctor of engineering degree from ONU.
 

Past Spotts Lecture Series Speakers