Nimmi Ramanujam

Dr. Nimmi Ramanujam is the Robert W. Carr Professor of Engineering and Professor of Cancer Pharmacology and Global Health at Duke University and co-program leader of the Radiation Oncology and Imaging Program (ROIP) at the Duke Cancer Institute. She founded the Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies (GWHT) in 2013 where she empowers trainees to create impactful solutions to improve the lives of women and girls globally. This center, since inception, has catalyzed new research activities and the development and commercialization of several technologies that advance prevention and treatment of cervical and breast cancer.

Dr. Ramanujam has built several global initiatives. The most notable is a consortium to impact cervical cancer prevention in low resource settings. Her MacArthur Foundation 100&Change proposal, Women-Inspired Strategies for Health: A Revolution against Cervical Cancer (WISH) was recognized as one of the Top 100 of the 755 proposals submitted to this $100M grant competition. In addition to her cervical cancer prevention initiative, she has also created a global women’s education program that intersects design-thinking, STEM concepts, and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals to promote social justice awareness (IGNITE). She has launched The (In) Visible Organ, an arts and storytelling initiative to raise awareness of sexual and reproductive health inequities.

Dr. Ramanujam has created two companies Zenalux and Calla Health to commercialize her technologies. She has received a number of awards including the MIT TR100 Young Innovator award, the Global Indus Technovator award, the Stansell Family award, multiple Era of Hope Scholar awards, the Emerging Leader in Global Health Award, the Social Impact Abie Award, the Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award, the Women in Molecular Imaging Leadership Award, the Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award, and the Wom C Global Impact Award.

Dr. Ramanujam is a fellow of several optical and biomedical engineering societies including OSA, SPIE, and AIMBE. She is a Fulbright scholar and the 2020 IEEE Distinguished Lecturer. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Inventors. She has demonstrated her work’s global impact through presentations at the United Nations and TEDx events, and a number of national and international plenary talks. Her work has been featured in a number of venues including Medical Daily, Wired Magazine, NPR and several podcasts.