Old Dominion University has named Kouhyar Tavakolian, Ph.D., MBA, FAIMBE, executive director of the Frank Reidy Research Center for Bioelectrics (FRRCBE) and appointed him as the Sentara Endowed Chair in Bioelectrics.
Dr. Tavakolian brings a track record of building ambitious, multidisciplinary research programs, along with expertise in biomedical signal processing, artificial intelligence, digital health and translational research. That blend of program building and technical depth is a strong match for the Center, which has helped shape the field of bioelectrics for more than two decades.
The University also has appointed Andrei G. Pakhomov, Ph.D., a longtime University researcher and internationally recognized leader in bioelectrics, as the Batten Endowed Chair in Bioelectrics Engineering.
Expanding the Translational Reach of Bioelectrics
Dr. Tavakolian joins Old Dominion University from the University of North Dakota (UND), where he was a professor of biomedical engineering and held leadership roles spanning research, academic program development and economic development. At Old Dominion University, he also will serve as a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology.
An elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Dr. Tavakolian has built his research career around the signals that can reveal what is happening inside the human body and the technologies that can make those signals useful. His work spans biomedical signal processing and wearable health monitoring as well as artificial intelligence, machine learning, point-of-care diagnostics, noninvasive cardiology and translational biomedical engineering.
Dr. Tavakolian’s research programs have attracted around $36 million in sponsored funding, including more than $31 million as principal investigator, from Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, U.S. Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Institutes of Health and the Canadian Space Agency. He helped secure a highly competitive ARPA-H award for an approximately $20 million initiative advancing edge-AI diabetes management for older adults, reflecting the agency’s distinctive focus on transformative, high-risk healthcare breakthroughs. His portfolio also includes a $9 million DoD program focused on detecting biological contamination and inactivating microorganisms on dining surfaces.
At UND, he helped build a standalone biomedical engineering department around innovation-based learning and founded the BioInnovation Zone (BiZ), an integrated medical-device incubator connecting students with industry. These efforts supported North Dakota’s economic development through partnerships among academia, industry and federal and state government.
As UND site director for NSF’s Center to Stream Healthcare in Place (), he connected North Dakota companies with a national university network for clinical research and technology validation. He is now working to establish an Old Dominion University site within this industry–university cooperative research center.
“The Center has a remarkable legacy of translating discoveries in electroporation into technologies that benefit industry and healthcare,” said Dr. Tavakolian.
“My experience has centered on connecting academic research with industry needs and government investment to advance innovation and economic development,” he continued. “I’m excited to work alongside Dr. Pakhomov and the Center’s faculty and staff to build on that legacy through stronger industry partnerships, expanded federal and state research supportand new applications of pulsed electric field and plasma technologies. Together, we can turn promising discoveries into practical solutions and create economic opportunities in Virginia and beyond.
“Ultimately, our goal is to improve people’s lives by bringing these advances into everyday care.”
Founded in 2002, FRRCBE helped pioneer the study of how pulsed electric fields interact with cells and tissues, bridging engineering, biology, medicine and physics to advance applications in healthcare and biotechnology. Dr. Tavakolian takes the helm with experience that aligns closely with that scientific foundation while bringing expertise in emerging areas of biomedical research.
Building on Two Decades of Bioelectrics Discovery
Dr. Pakhomov has been part of the University and the Frank Reidy Research Center for Bioelectrics for more than two decades and served as executive director from 2021 to 2026. His appointment as the Batten Endowed Chair in Bioelectrics Engineering recognizes a research career that has helped deepen understanding of how electrical energy can affect living cells and tissues.
That work sits at the heart of bioelectrics: learning how carefully controlled electrical pulses interact with biological systems, then using that knowledge to open new possibilities in medicine.
Dr. Pakhomov studies how extremely short electrical pulses can be used to influence living cells — stimulating nerve or heart cells in some cases or briefly opening tiny pores in cell membranes in others. The latter process, known as electroporation, temporarily makes cell membranes more permeable, allowing substances to pass into or out of cells. That ability to control what a pulse does, and how a cell responds, points to applications ranging from lower-energy defibrillation and nerve stimulation to more precise ways of destroying unwanted tissue, including tumors.
Dr. Pakhomov has led research programs totaling nearly $20 million in extramural support, serving as principal investigator on six National Institutes of Health awards and a $7.5 million Air Force Office of Scientific Research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI). His current $1.28 million NIH/NIGMS R01 grant examines how cell membranes respond to electrical stress at nanosecond and nanometer scales.
“What excites me most is that our research has opened an entirely new window into how living cell membranes respond to electrical stress,” said Dr. Pakhomov.
“We have demonstrated the ability to study these processes in extraordinary detail, capturing changes that happen in billionths of a second and at scales nearly as small as individual molecules,” he continued. “This breakthrough laid the foundation for our recent NIH grant and puts us in a position to discover how electroporation works at its most fundamental level, revealing processes that have remained hidden until now.”
“The prospect of discovering something truly new about the nature of these processes, and ultimately translating that knowledge into better medical treatments, is what makes this research so rewarding.”
His scholarly record includes 120 peer-reviewed journal articles, and his work has earned recognition across the international bioelectrics and bioelectromagnetics communities.
As the Batten Endowed Chair, Dr. Pakhomov will continue exploring these interactions at extraordinarily small scales, with a focus on learning how to tune electrical pulses for different effects. The goal is greater control — stimulating cells without damaging them when possible, or deliberately opening cell membranes when treatment requires it. The work could help improve technologies used in defibrillation, electrical stimulation, gene delivery and cardiac and cancer ablation.
Sustaining Research Strength Through Leadership
Old Dominion University also recognizes Oscar R. González, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, for his service as interim executive director of the Center during its leadership transition.
Dr. González is an accomplished researcher in systems and control theory whose work has included autonomous and fault-tolerant systems, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence applications in control design. As chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering, he leads a department with extensive research connections to the Center.
His interim leadership provided continuity for the Center’s research mission while the University prepared for its next chapter.
Advancing a Field Ҵý Helped Establish
Established in 2002 as the world’s first research center dedicated to bioelectrics, the Center brings together expertise in engineering, biology, medicine and physics.
At its core, bioelectrics explores how electromagnetic fields and ionized gases interact with living systems — and how those interactions might be put to work.
The Center’s research spans fundamental discovery and applications in cancer treatment, cardiac therapies, wound healing, neuroscience, plasma medicine and other emerging biomedical technologies. Its researchers have generated more than 50 U.S. patents and 600 peer-reviewed publications, helping establish the University as an internationally recognized center for bioelectrics research.
The Center also leads the International Bioelectrics Consortium, connecting researchers and institutions across the United States, Europe and Asia and extending the University’s role in a global research community working to move bioelectrics discoveries toward new scientific and biomedical applications.