Date Time Joyce Wong Elected to National Academy of Inventors Joyce Wong’s career as an inventor began with-and was inspired by-a pair of painful personal events. While she was pursuing her PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), her grandfather succumbed to cancer and, shortly thereafter, her father suffered a nonfatal heart attack. “At the time, I was working with biomaterials and studying their interactions with cells,” says Wong, a Boston University College of Engineering professor of biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, maybe the research I can do will really make a difference.'”