Iman Salafian, PhD, PMP
Program Lead at Brumley Institute for Graduate Entrepreneurship
Area of Interests: Medical Device Innovation & Commercialization, Entrepreneurship, Project Management, Higher Education
If a plan doesn’t work, change the PLAN, not the GOAL!
Iman is currently the program lead at the Brumley Institute for Graduate Entrepreneurship at UT-Austin and the co-founder & CEO of Imagine Devices Inc., a UT-Austin spin-out company focused on developing and commercializing innovative medical devices for pediatric and neonatal care.
Iman earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, where his research centered on creating vital sign monitoring devices tailored for pediatric patients.
With over 15 years of experience in the manufacturing and medical device industries, Iman is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and an accomplished R&D engineer. He has co-invented and developed two groundbreaking medical technologies, Trinity Tube and Palm Reader, through a collaborative effort with UT-Austin’s clinicians and engineers (read his story here).
Passionate about MedTech innovation and commercialization, Iman thrives on working closely with clinicians, patients, and their families to turn visionary clinical concepts into real-world products that improve pediatric healthcare outcomes.
Education and Career History
Iman earned his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Isfahan University of Technology (IUT), where he focused on the mechanical properties and numerical simulation of NiTi smart materials and the design and development of assistive and rehabilitation technologies. During his B.Sc program at IUT, Iman was recognized and awarded “the Distinguished Best Undergraduate Student of the Year ” and “The Best Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Student of the Year” among more than 9,000 undergraduate students.
In 2017, Iman received his Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a specialization in biomedical engineering. During his program, he joined Terry’s Research Laboratory (TRL) as a graduate research assistant, where he developed the end-effector of a 4 Cable-Driven Parallel Manipulator (CDPM). The CPDM is equipped with multiple advanced hyperspectral and infrared camera systems that are used for remote sensing and automatically phenotyping a one-acre maize field. The project was granted by the Agricultural Research Division (ARD) at the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (IANR).
Iman also collaborated with the Cardiovascular Biology and Biomechanics Laboratory (CBBL) at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) on a medical device project. During this collaboration, he designed and built a novel, highly versatile stimulation bioreactor chamber for coronary artery experiments. The bio-chamber was used primarily to study the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis in vitro and to measure the effectiveness of different anti-atherosclerotic drugs, and atherosclerotic plaque disruption mechanisms.
From 2017 to 2021, he worked as a full-time R&D Mechanical Engineer at Bison Inc., where he designed and developed custom-built ceiling-mounted indoor and outdoor gymnasium equipment. Bison Inc. offers a wide range of gymnasium equipment such as basketball, volleyball, and specialty net games; soccer and specialty goals; and football and field sports goals.
During the same time period, Iman also worked as a Lab Manager and Engineering Lecturer at the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at UNL, where he taught engineering design and computer modeling. Iman holds a highly recognized Project Management Professional (PMP) Certificate through PMI after completing more than 400 projects in different areas.
At UT-Austin, he worked as the project manager for UT-Austin’s EcoCAR EV Challenge team, where he enjoyed leading six main tracks such as engineering, DEI, and communication. EcoCAR EV Challenge is a four-year prestigious collegiate competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, General Motors and MathWorks, and is administered by Argonne National Laboratory. In this competition, students will re-engineer a state-of-the-art 2023 Cadillac LYRIQ to design, build, refine and demonstrate the potential of their advanced propulsion systems and connected and autonomous technologies