Mihaela Balu

Biography

Mihaela Balu, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Departments of Dermatology and Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. She leads the Nonlinear Optical Microscopy Lab at the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic and directs the BLI Microscopy Shared Resource for the P30 Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center (NCI) and the Skin Biology Research Center (NIAMS) at UCI. Balu's research focuses on developing and applying nonlinear optical microscopy technologies for non-invasive, label-free imaging of human skin in clinical research and practice. She received a Ph.D. in Optics from the College of Optics & Photonics: CREOL at the University of Central Florida.

Balu has led multidisciplinary collaborations that have advanced the clinical translation of multiphoton microscopy for dermatological applications. Her work has established methods for non-invasive diagnosis of melanoma and basal cell carcinoma, monitoring of vitiligo therapies, and assessment of pigmentary disorders in human skin. She co-founded Infraderm, LLC in 2017 and holds multiple patents, including technologies for rapid scanning of large tissue areas and fiber-based coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering imaging. Her technical innovations include the development of the Fast Large Area Multiphoton Exoscope (FLAME) platform for macroscopic imaging with microscopic resolution.

Balu serves as a reviewer for NIH study sections including Clinical Translational Imaging Science and Small Business: Medical Imaging, and is an editorial board member for Scientific Reports and Biophotonics Discovery. She has received the School of Medicine Annual Outstanding Mid-Career Faculty Research Award for Clinical Research (2024). Her research is supported by multiple NIH grants as principal investigator, including projects funded by NCI, NIBIB, and NIAMS focused on improving early detection of melanoma and developing advanced multiphoton microscopy platforms for clinical skin imaging.

Education

• Ph.D. in Optics, College of Optics & Photonics: CREOL, University of Central Florida, 2006
• M.S. in Physics, University of Bucharest, 1999
• B.S. in Physics, University of Bucharest, 1998

Distinctions

• School of Medicine Annual Outstanding Mid-Career Faculty Research Award (Clinical Research), 2024
• CREOL Fellowship, University of Central Florida, 2000-2005
• UCF Graduate Studies Fellowship, 2006
• Certificate of Appreciation, College of Optics & Photonics: CREOL&FPCE, 2006