Albert Titus named to National Academy of Inventors

BUFFALO, N.Y. — University at Buffalo researcher Albert H. Titus, who serves as professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).

Such status, according to the NAI, is the highest professional distinction accorded by the organization to academic inventors who have demonstrated “a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.”

Titus is one of 175 researchers worldwide to be elected to the NAI this year.

“Albert Titus is a prolific investigator whose innovative research record spans a diverse array of fields including artificial vision, hardware and software for artificial neural networks, optoelectronics, and integrated sensor systems. He is a recognized leader in his field, with patents and scholarship that have contributed greatly to the advancement of technologies with great societal benefit,” according to a joint statement from Kemper Lewis, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Michael Cain, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Titus is known for his contributions in the following research areas:

• Bio-inspired analog visual systems, in which he seeks to develop new ways to improve visual processing for autonomous systems, such as robots and planetary explorers
• Bioinstrumentation, the use of specialized devices that detect biological signals from the human body
• Integrated sensors, the use of detection systems to convert light to electrical signals, as well as using similar sensors to detect chemical agents
• Neuromorphic visual processing systems, in which he seeks to improve electronic imaging by mimicking the sensing and processing characteristics of living organisms, such as those of the human eye.

Titus has received numerous research grants from federal and private sources. He has been a reviewer for many journals and conferences, and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a member of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the American Society for Engineering Education. Titus, who holds eight patents with two more pending, has authored or co-authored nearly 100 peer-reviewed journal articles.

Titus has served as chair of biomedical engineering, a joint program between the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, since 2012. Additionally, he is an adjunct professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Prior to joining the UB faculty in 2012, he was an assistant professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Among his awards and honors are the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service (2017); UB Teaching Innovation Award (2010); the UB Exceptional Scholar Program: Young Investigator Award (2006); and the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2000).

He earned his PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1997, and obtained his BS and MS degrees from UB in 1989 and 1991, respectively.

Titus will be inducted at a ceremony on June 7-9, 2021, in Tampa, Florida.