Dr. Stacy Klein
Vanderbilt University
Associate Dean for Outreach
Research Ass. Professor of BME
Research Ass. Professor of Teaching & Learning School of
Engineering Dean's Office
Dr. Stacy Klein went to high school in Oxford, Mississippi, before attending Duke University where she double majored in biomedical and electrical engineering (E' 91). Through her summers at Duke, she worked at the Talent Identification Program (TIP) where she fell in love with teaching. She then moved to Philadelphia, PA, and earned her master's degree in BME at Drexel with a research focus in edge detection in cardiac ultrasound images. Dr. Klein then moved to Nashville, TN, where she currently resides, to earn her Ph.D. in BME at Vanderbilt University with a research focus in cardiac MRI. In the final months of her doctoral work, Dr. Klein began teaching high school biology and mathematics at the all girls school Harpeth Hall. Two years later she moved to the University School of Nashville and began teaching physics and precalculus and later biomedical physics. In 1999, Dr. Klein also began serving as an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt in the BME department, teaching Introduction to Engineering. She began writing, field-testing, and training teachers in high school level biomedical engineering curriculum through the NSF-funded VaNTH ERC (Vanderbilt-Northwestern-Texas-Harvard/MIT Engineering Research Center).
After 7 years of juggling high school and college responsibilities, Dr. Klein decided to focus exclusively on her research and teaching at Vanderbilt in 2006. In the summer of 2007, Dr. Klein was appointed the Associate Dean for Outreach for the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering. She continues to teach Introduction to Engineering as well as Biomechanics. Dr Klein is an Associate Professor of the Practice of Biomedical Engineering and has appointments in the Radiology and Teaching & Learning departments in the schools of medicine and education as well. She also maintains an active research program in developing high school level BME curriculum, professional development training for high school teachers, and curriculum development at the undergraduate level.