Elisa E. Konofagou

Elisa Konofagou is a Greek biomedical engineer in the field of medical ultrasound. She is the Robert and Margaret Hariri Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology (Physics) at Columbia University in New York. Konofagou is a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and she received the NSF CAREER Award in 2007.

Education
Konofagou graduated with her bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Paris VI University and master's degree from Imperial College in 1992 and 1993, respectively. She received her Doctorate of Philosophy in 1999 from the University of Houston for her research in elastography at the University of Texas Medical School. She completed postdoctoral research in elasticity-based monitoring of focused ultrasound therapy at Brigham and Women's Hospital. She received a Fulbright U.S. Inter-country Award in 2019.

Research interests
Konofagou heads the Ultrasound Elasticity and Imaging Laboratory (UEIL), which works on developing novel ultrasound techniques for imaging and therapeutics. Her main interests are related to elasticity imaging, including harmonic motion imaging, pulse wave imaging, and electromechanical wave imaging. The clinical foci of the UEIL include breast, ligament, and myocardial elastography, as well as focused ultrasound therapy related to the blood-brain barrier. Konofagou maintains several clinical collaborations with the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center.

Teaching
Konofagou was an instructor and postdoctoral fellow at Bringham Women's Hospital (Harvard Medical School) from 2002 to 2003. Subsequently, she gained assistant (2003) and associate (2009) professorship roles in the departments of radiology and biomedical engineering at Columbia University. She is currently a professor of biomedical engineering and radiology at Columbia. She also served as the graduate chair of biomedical engineering in 2015.

Awards
Awards received by Konofagou include:
 * Young Investigator Award, Acoustical Society of America, 2002
 * New Investigator Award, American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine, 2006
 * CAREER Award, National Science Foundation, 2007
 * Nagy Award by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering – NIH, 2007
 * Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, 2014
 * Fellow, Acoustical Society of America, 2017
 * Bodossaki Foundation Award of Scientific Excellence in Applied Science, 2017