Dr. Pollonini earned his Ph.D. in Information Engineering from the University of Brescia, Italy in 2004. He holds a faculty appointment at the University of Houston, TX, and became a member of the Houston Methodist Research Institute in 2014. As a member of the Houston Methodist Department of Surgery, he conducts a research program focusing on optical imaging of tissue oxygenation.  Dr. Pollonini also serves as a panelist for the National Science Foundation and is a member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). He serves as the Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine.

Dr. Pollonini’s expertise is the design and development of biomedical sensors and instrumentation based on optical technologies. His primary research interest is in the quantitative assessment of the mechanisms of transport and utilization of oxygen at cardiovascular and muscular levels. Dr. Pollonini has been involved in the development of a suite of wearable sensors aimed to provide indicators of exercise thresholds through the analysis of systemic and local physiological measures, and in a NIRS-based imaging system to monitor oxygenation changes in human tissues.