Duke Engineering

Before Roarke Horstmeyer joined as a faculty member, he was a Duke University undergraduate studying physics and Japanese after spending a gap year immersed in rural Japan.

"I really enjoyed learning the language and living there, so when I arrived at Duke I wanted to continue studying it and stay proficient."

After graduate school in California and a postdoc in Germany, Horstmeyer returned to Duke to develop microscopes and imaging software to improve patient care from pathology reports to surgical procedures.

"When you look through a microscope, you can only see a very small area at once. Our goal is to help researchers and clinicians see much more—larger areas, in three dimensions, or across multiple colors—without sacrificing detail."

What excites him most is collaborating with biologists and clinicians to tackle real-world challenges.

"I get to learn about fascinating problems from people with completely different expertise, then think about how optics, imaging and algorithms can help solve them."

➡️ His advice for students:

"It's important to think holistically about both the problems you want to solve throughout your career and the ways you want to solve them. If you can find that intersection—where meaningful work aligns with what you genuinely enjoy doing—that's the ideal."

Learn more about how Duke engineers are advancing technologies to transform research and medicine: https://bme.duke.edu