Dr. Michelle Digman is a distinguished biomedical engineer and physical chemist renowned for her innovative contributions to advanced cellular imaging technologies. She currently serves as Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine, holding joint appointments in Developmental and Cell Biology. As Director of the W.M. Keck Nanoimaging Laboratory and co-leader of the Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics, she has established a world-class research environment focused on biophysical imaging. Dr. Digman earned her PhD in Chemistry with a specialization in biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2003, followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign where she became director of the Optical Biology Core Facility before joining UCI in 2013.
Her pioneering research has fundamentally transformed cellular imaging through the development and application of novel biophysical and optical tools including the phasor approach to fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy, hyperspectral imaging, and quantitative spatial and temporal correlation spectroscopies. Dr. Digman's work enables unprecedented characterization of molecular dynamics in living systems, providing critical insights into cellular health through non-invasive imaging of fluorescent biomarkers that reveal metabolic alterations in cancer and degenerative diseases. She has led significant advancements in techniques such as raster image correlation spectroscopy and Number and Molecular Brightness analysis, while developing open-source software for mitochondrial segmentation and tracking that has become widely adopted in the field. Her research particularly focuses on the spatiotemporal dynamics of Rho proteins during cell migration, a critical process in embryonic development and disease progression.
Beyond her scientific contributions, Dr. Digman has been instrumental in promoting diversity and inclusion in STEM through her founding of the Undergraduate Student Initiative for Biomedical Research, which has provided critical research opportunities for underrepresented community college students and high school students since 2011. She serves as Co-equity advisor for the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and BME Associate Chair for Graduate Affairs, demonstrating her commitment to educational excellence and equity in scientific training. With over 115 peer-reviewed publications and recognition through prestigious awards including the NSF CAREER Award and Allen Distinguished Investigator Award, her work continues to shape the future of biomedical imaging. Dr. Digman's ongoing research focuses on developing next-generation imaging technologies with transformative applications spanning cancer biology, neurodegenerative diseases, bacterial virulence, and developmental processes.
