Elizabeth Hillman joins St. Jude as chair of Imaging Sciences

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital today announced that Elizabeth M.C. Hillman, PhD, has been selected as the founding chair of its new Department of Imaging Sciences. The department will establish a new community of technology innovators at St. Jude, whose tools and techniques will accelerate scientific discovery and improve the understanding and diagnosis of catastrophic childhood diseases.   

Hillman is a pioneer in imaging method development, with a track record of developing high-speed microscopes and in-vivo imaging systems to study living tissues. Her new department will welcome a range of new faculty recruits whose expertise will extend from microscopic imaging at the sub-cellular level to medical imaging of the whole body. The department’s mission will be to develop innovative new imaging and measurement approaches that will enable groundbreaking scientific studies and improve patient care, while maximizing the impact of discoveries through technology sharing.   

“Elizabeth is a renowned physicist, gifted biomedical engineer and prolific inventor of new technologies. We quickly realized that we wanted her to build and lead not just a center of excellence but a full academic department,” said James R. Downing, MD, president and CEO of St. Jude. “As part of our culture of innovation, Elizabeth will recruit talented faculty who will push the frontier of imaging to transform basic and clinical research for children everywhere.”  

Hillman joins St. Jude from Columbia University, where she was a Herbert and Florence Irving Professor in the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and a tenured professor in both the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology. Over the past 20 years, she has developed and applied a wide range of novel imaging and data analysis methods, including technologies that have been licensed to PerkinElmer and Leica Microsystems.   

“Recent advances in the visualization and quantification of biological processes and disease mechanisms have catalyzed a revolution in biomedical research and treatment,” said J. Paul Taylor, MD, PhD, St. Jude executive vice president and scientific director. “Recognizing the potential of these advances to have immediate impact on our mission, St. Jude has made a significant commitment to bring our institution to the forefront of biomedical imaging innovation.”   

“Environment plays a key role in innovation,” Hillman explains, noting that many of her imaging techniques have been inspired by local collaborators and her own scientific studies of brain physiology in health and disease. “St. Jude is a unique place, where talented and passionate researchers are trying to answer really challenging questions to save children’s lives. I can’t imagine a more inspiring environment for innovation, or a better place to see the immediate impact of our discoveries.”  

Hillman earned her PhD in medical physics and bioengineering from University College London, where she also completed a BSc and MSc in physics. She completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Engineering, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Hillman has published more than 100 research papers in journals including Science, Nature Methods, Nature Photonics, Nature Biomedical Engineering and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She has also been a contributing author to Scientific American. Hillman, who holds more than 20 issued patents, was elected to the National Academy of Inventors in 2022.