Eric Robert Tkaczyk, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dermatology and is a physician-scientist with research interests in biophotonics for diagnosis and treatment of skin diseases. Some of his research specialties include noninvasive diagnostic technology, 3D imaging, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and deep learning. Some of his clinical interests include graft-versus-host disease, skin cancer and reflectance confocal microscopy.
Dr. Tkaczyk is a graduate of the MD/PhD at the University of Michigan, with PhD in electrical engineering from the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science (CUOS). At CUOS, he overlapped with his academic grandfather Gerard Mourou, the 2018 Nobel Laureate who founded the lab. Dr. Tkaczyk's post-doctoral training in medical device design at the University of Tartu was supported by Fulbright and Whitaker awards. This work culminated with a prize awarded by the US Ambassador to Estonia and the Estonian Speaker of Parliament at the 2011 Estonian-American Innovation Award ceremony. In 2016, he completed dermatology residency training at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he is Assistant Professor of Dermatology, and he holds secondary appointments in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Biomedical Informatics, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is also an attending dermatologist at the VA Medical Center.
Tkaczyk is board-certified to practice dermatology both in the U.S. and in Europe, by the American Board of Dermatology and the European Board of Dermato – Venereology. As founding Director of the Vanderbilt Dermatology Translational Research Clinic, he lectures internationally on dermatologic imaging technologies, which is his research focus.
Professional Affiliations
American Academy of Dermatology
American Medical Association
IASTED Technical Committee on Image Processing
American Nano Society
American Society for Laser Medicine
American Association for the Advancement of Science
International Society for BioMEMS and Biomedical Nanotechnology
Mathematical Association of America
National Society of Professional Engineers