James Friend leads the Medically Advanced Devices Laboratory in the Center for Medical Devices at the University of California, San Diego, as a professor in both the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Jacobs School of Engineering and the Department of Surgery, School of Medicine. His research interests are principally in exploring and exploiting micro/nano acoustofluidics for biomedical applications. He most recently co-founded Arna Systems, a diagnostics company. Among other awards, he is a fellow of the IEEE and awarded the IEEE Carl Hellmuth Hertz Ultrasonics Award from the IEEE in 2015.