About Alexander Tsiaras, DIA 2017 Keynote Speaker

Alexander Tsiaras is the Founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of TheVisualMD.com. Mr. Tsiaras grew TheVisualMD.com out of his already well established journalism enterprise. His self-styled journalistic career began in 1972 when, at the age of 19, he co-authored his first book, Death Rituals of Rural Greece (Princeton University Press), and went on to create Conception to Birth, Architecture and Design of Man and Woman, and The InVision Guide to Healthy Heart, Sexual Health and Life Blood. Tsiaras is the recipient of numerous awards, including the World Press Award, Webby, and the prestigious Satava Award for his work in the improvement of medicine through advanced technology. His work has been featured on the covers of Time, New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, LIFE, and the London Sunday Times Magazine.

Along with being an artist and journalist, he has taught himself mathematics and physics, and developed his own lenses, including one for a microscope that was used to photograph the first images of human eggs in an in vitro fertilization program. Another lens was used for the endoscope that can photograph the fetus from outside the amniotic sack. The images resulting from this became cover stories for Life Magazine. In 1989, Mr. Tsiaras realized the potential of computer generated imaging and learned UNIX, then C, and C++ to write his own programs, transferring his knowledge of light moving through physical space to light moving through tissue in virtual space. He was offered an adjunct professorship at both Brown and Yale University Medical schools. While working with Yale he received funding from NASA to write algorithms for virtual surgery, so astronauts could be cut in robotics pods for deep space flights.