Banu Onaral, Ph.D., an H. H. Sun Professor of Biomedical and Electrical Engineering at Drexel University, passed away on Dec. 17, 2024, at the age of 75.
Onaral was a “pioneering biomedical engineer, visionary academic leader, and global innovator who was a valued member of the Drexel BIOMED community,” according to School of Biomedical Engineering Dean Brandt-Rauf.
A funeral service was held for Onaral on Dec. 19, 2024, in Philadelphia. A Memorial Gathering was held at Drexel on Jan. 24, 2025. A group visit to Onaral’s burial site in Upper Darby, PA was arranged, and a campus tour was led to highlight Onaral’s impact on the university’s academic excellence. The main program consisted of various tribute speakers and eulogies from family, friends and colleagues, highlighted by a live music performance by Onaral’s son, Mutlu Onaral, an American soul singer, songwriter and artist.
Onaral received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey in 1973 and 1974 respectively, and her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. She joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Biomedical Engineering and Science Institute at Drexel in 1981.
Through research and teaching, she focused on information engineering with an emphasis on complex systems, functional optical brain imaging and biomedical signal processing in optics and ultrasound. Onaral spearheaded the process of transforming the Biomedical Engineering and Science Institute into an interdisciplinary school that we now know as Drexel’s School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, and served as its Founding Director from 1997 to 2014.
Onaral served on the editorial board of journals and the CRC Biomedical Engineering Handbook as the section editor for Biomedical Signaling Analysis. She was the president of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, which is the largest member-based biomedical engineering society in the world. She organized and chaired/co-chaired the 1990 Annual International Conference of the EMBS and the 2004 Annual Conference of the Biomedical Engineering Society.
The Cognitive Neuroengineering and Quantitative Experimental Research Collaborative, established in 2008, is among the many laboratories that Onaral founded. It is an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional effort that focuses on the study of brain activation and development, as well as the integration of functional optical brain imaging technologies in human systems, healthcare, mental health, performance and learning. The CONQUER Collaborative spans internationally, with research partners all over the United States, China, Italy, Israel, Turkey and Spain. Onaral also led Drexel’s Global Innovation Partnerships initiative as its senior presidential advisor.
Onaral’s tremendous impact in biomedical engineering spans internationally. She helped organize the first Asia-Pacific Biomedical Engineering Conference in Hangzhou, China and directed the development of Shanghai Jio Tong University’s dual-doctoral degree program in neuroengineering. She was on the strategic planning team that created Sabancı University in Istanbul, Turkey in 1998 and served on its Board of Trustees. She served as an honorary advisor to many Turkish universities and participated in various regional health innovation initiatives, such as INOVIZ and INOVITA, as the US global liaison.
Onaral was the leader of many research projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health, Office of Naval Research, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Aviation Agency. She received many faculty excellence awards, including the 1990 Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award of Drexel University and the NSF Faculty Achievement Award.
Ultimately, her pioneering work in the fields of biomedical engineering, neuroengineering and neuroimaging has transformed the disciplines and shaped their future through groundbreaking research, innovation and strong global collaborations and partnerships.