Michael Doyle

“As a science fair project [in grade school] I designed an artificial gill you could wear and breathe underwater,” says Mike Doyle, PhD. “So I went to college [at the U of I at Urbana-Champaign] thinking I was going into marine biology. During that time—I had already won awards for drawing in high school—I discovered that there’s this great major at Illinois in Chicago where you could combine the two.”

That’s a pretty good summary of Doyle: inventor, scientist, artist, discoverer.

Doyle, who earned a bachelor’s degree in medical art (now biomedical visualization) in 1983, now holds more than a dozen patents for technologies in data analysis, visualization, collaboration and networking. He’s been recognized internationally for his pioneering work in next-generation web applications and 3D technologies for biomedical applications.

In 1994 Doyle founded Eolas Technologies to commercialize the technologies invented at UCSF. If his success was ever in question, that ended when Microsoft built Windows on the system he invented.

Still chairman of Eolas, Doyle is also the founder and president of the charitable Buonacorsi Foundation, which supports numerous arts organizations.

Doyle credits his education as the foundation for his success: “I’m convinced that the multidisciplinary background I had was what led me into doing those kinds of projects.”