Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

Kevin Bennet, chair of the Division of Engineering at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., will discuss collaborative engineering as the speaker for the inaugural President’s Leadership Seminar, Tuesday, Oct. 4, from 12:30-2 p.m. in the Science Building auditorium.

Bennet will speak on “Collaborative Engineering – Experiences from the Mayo Clinic Division of Engineering.”

President Lewis Walker is introducing a new annual tradition at Lawrence Tech. “The goal of this seminar is to invite the entire Lawrence Tech community at the start of the academic year to listen to a speaker who will motivate and inspire all of us with examples of innovative and creative solutions to many diverse problems and situations,” he said.

The President’s Leadership Seminar will provide a forum for leaders who can show that innovation results from collaboration among diverse disciplines and a desire to solve an important problem. The seminar should relate to the areas of expertise and the academic programs offered at Lawrence Tech. 

Since 1999, Bennet has led a Mayo Clinic division of 60 individuals who seek to apply the skills of engineers and programmers for the creation of novel biomedical engineering systems, equipment, implantables and devices. Major efforts include cardiac monitoring, paging systems, clinical devices, surgical instruments, and a variety of other projects in support of cancer, genomics, therapeutics, surgery, information technology, and infrastructure. The division has licensed 10 technologies, and four patents have been issued.

Bennet is also co-director of the Mayo Neural Engineering Laboratory and co-director of the Mayo-based Deep Brain Stimulation Consortium.

For 10 years he was an instructor in tumor biology in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at the Mayo Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. He also was administrator of data administration and development support for Mayo Foundation information systems, and chair of the Office of Strategic Alliances at Mayo.

Before coming to the Mayo Clinic, Bennet worked for the National Institutes of Health, the University of Texas Health Science Center, W.R. Grace and Company, Exxon and Amoco Chemicals Corp.

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