Robert Plonsey is currently the Pfizer-Pratt University Professor Emeritus of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University

Duke University

Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

. He is noted for his work on bioelectricty.

Education

Plonsey was born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1924. He received the B.E.E. degree in electrical engineering from the Cooper Union

Cooper Union

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...

 School of Engineering in New York in 1943, and the M.E.E degree from New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

 in 1948.

He obtained his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 in 1957. In addition, he completed the first year and a half of the MD curriculum and the Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University is a private research university located in Cleveland, Ohio, USA...

 School of Medicine (1969–1972).

Career

Plonsey was a professor at Case Western Reserve University from 1968–1983, including a term as chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (1976–1980). In 1983, he moved to Duke University. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

American Association for the Advancement of Science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...

 and was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering

National Academy of Engineering

The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...

 in 1986 for "the application of electromagnetic field theory to biology, and for distinguished leadership in the emerging profession of biomedical engineering." He retired from Duke in 1996 as the Pfizer Inc./Edmund T. Pratt Jr. University Professor Emeritus of Biomedical Engineering.

Research

Plonsey's research centers on bioelectric phenomena, including the electrical activity of nerves and muscle. With his student John Clark, he derived a mathematical relationship between the transmembrane potential and the extracellular potential produced by a propagating action potential

Action potential

In physiology, an action potential is a short-lasting event in which the electrical membrane potential of a cell rapidly rises and falls, following a consistent trajectory. Action potentials occur in several types of animal cells, called excitable cells, which include neurons, muscle cells, and...

 in a nerve

Nerve

A peripheral nerve, or simply nerve, is an enclosed, cable-like bundle of peripheral axons . A nerve provides a common pathway for the electrochemical nerve impulses that are transmitted along each of the axons. Nerves are found only in the peripheral nervous system...

 axon

Axon

An axon is a long, slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, that conducts electrical impulses away from the neuron's cell body or soma....

.
Some of Plonsey's most influential work addresses the electrical properties of the heart

Heart

The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...

, often in collaboration with Roger Barr. They played a role in the development of the bidomain

Bidomain

The bidomain model is a mathematical model of the electrical properties of cardiac muscle that takes into account the anisotropy of both the intracellular and extracellular spaces.The bidomain model was developed in the late 1970s....

 model, a mathematical model of the anisotropic electrical properties of cardiac muscle

Cardiac muscle

Cardiac muscle is a type of involuntary striated muscle found in the walls and histologic foundation of the heart, specifically the myocardium. Cardiac muscle is one of three major types of muscle, the others being skeletal and smooth muscle...

,
and developed a hypothesis of the mechanism for defibrillation

Defibrillation

Defibrillation is a common treatment for life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, ventricular fibrillation and pulseless ventricular tachycardia. Defibrillation consists of delivering a therapeutic dose of electrical energy to the affected heart with a device called a defibrillator...

 based on the idea that individual cardiac cells are depolarized on one end and hyperpolarized on the other during the shock, sometimes known as the saw-tooth model.
Plonsey also collaborated with Yorum Rudy to calculate the relationship between body surface and epicardial electrical potentials,

and with Frank Witkowski to analyze action potential wave fronts recorded during defibrillation shocks.

Awards

Year	Award
1979	William Morlock Award from the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society The IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society is an IEEE group dedicated to the study of Biomedical Engineering. Current president is Bin He.- History :...
1984	Centennial Medal from the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
1988	ALZA Distinguished Lecturer from the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES BMES BMES was founded on February 1, 1968 "to promote the increase of biomedical engineering knowledge and its utilization." It is active primarily in America.... )
1997	Merit Award from the International Union for Physiological & Engineering Science in Medicine
2000	Millennium Medal from the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
2004	Ragnar Granit Prize from the Ragnar Granit Ragnar Granit Ragnar Arthur Granit was a Finnish/Swedish scientist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1967 along with Haldan Keffer Hartline and George Wald....  Foundation
2005	Theo Pilkington Outstanding Educator Award from the Biomedical Engineering Division of the American Society for Engineering Education American Society for Engineering Education The American Society for Engineering Education is a non-profit member association, founded in 1893, dedicated to promoting and improving engineering and engineering technology education....

Books

Plonsey is the author of several books, including:

• Principles and Applications of Electromagnetic Fields coauthored with Robert Collin (McGraw-Hill, 1961)
• Bioelectric Phenomena (McGraw-Hill, 1969)
• Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach coauthored with Roger Barr (Springer, 3rd Ed., 2007)
• Bioelectromagnetism: Principles and Applications of Bioelectric and Biomagnetic Fields coauthored with Jaakko Malmivuo (Oxford Univ Press, 1995)