Beginning August 15, pending execution of a final memorandum of understanding, Andrew Webb, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, will become co-director of the Carle Illinois Advanced Imaging Center. The Beckman Institute will confirm the appointment once the agreement is finalized.

Webb returned to Illinois in June 2026 after serving as professor and director of the Gorter Center in the Department of Radiology at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands since 2008. Before that, he served as a faculty member in the Illinois Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Andrew Webb He will co-direct the Carle Illinois Advanced Imaging Center with Bruce Damon, Carle Health’s director of clinical imaging research.

The center is a collaborative effort between Beckman and the Stephens Family Clinical Research Institute at Carle Health. It’s home to the only Siemens MAGNETOM Terra 7 Tesla MRI scanner in Illinois.

On sabbatical in 2019-20, Webb spent a year working at the Stephens Family Clinical Research Institute at Carle Foundation Hospital, planning for and installing the center’s 7 Tesla MRI.

“The opportunity to set up a wide-ranging imaging center to link technological and methodological developments at the university with clinical and clinical research applications at Carle is very exciting,” Webb said. “We hope to expand existing expertise in MRI, ultrasound and optical imaging technologies, while providing a research and mentoring home for several new hires across many colleges at the university.”