Eli Vlaisavljevich awarded the Bill and Lavinia Hall Faculty Fellowship
Eli Vlaisavljevich, professor of biomedical engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been honored with an appointment as the Bill and Lavinia Hall Faculty Fellow by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.
The Bill and Lavinia Hall Faculty Fellowship in Engineering was established with a generous gift from Bill and Lavinia Hall in 2026. The creation of this professorship enables the College of Engineering to generate continued interest in high-impact scholarly productivity.
A member of the Virginia Tech community since 2017, Vlaisavljevich has obtained more than 30 external grants from government and nonprofit agencies totaling over $25 million, including multiple National Institutes of Health grants to develop novel treatments for liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, uterine fibroids, soft tissue sarcoma, osteosarcoma, and other applications. This funding has allowed him to grow his research program with more than 50 papers authored and several provisional patents. His experience in the medical device industry has also allowed him to create a laboratory that develops technologies from bench to bedside, encompassing both human and veterinary medical applications.
Through hands-on research and learning experiences, he has impacted hundreds of undergraduate, graduate, veterinary, and medical students. He uses his industry and clinical experience to prepare students for careers as engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and clinicians. Students in his courses have continuously praised his hands-on teaching style and his integration of fundamental curriculum with practical considerations such as economic, regulatory, and clinical impacts involved with the development of new technologies.
Vlaisavljevich has shown an outstanding commitment to mentoring students in design teams and professional organizations. Highlights of these activities include being the faculty mentor for Bioactivity and mentor for design teams in biological systems engineering, engineering science and mechanics, materials science and engineering, electrical engineering, and biomedical engineering. He also mentored a team of business students in a management consulting course and was the founding director of the first student board for the International Society of Therapeutic Ultrasound, connecting dozens of graduate student representatives from across North America, Europe, and Asia. Vlaisavljevich was also named the 2026 Mentor of the Year by the 2026 Medical Student Research Symposium.
Vlaisavljevich received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan Technological University and his master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
