Stephen A. Boppart is a principal investigator at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he holds an Abel Bliss Professorship in engineering.

From 1991 to 1993, he developed national laser safety standards at the Air Force Research Laboratory in San Antonio, Texas.

degrees under a joint program between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Medical School.

[5][6] Boppart started the Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory at UIUC in 2000, an interdisciplinary research group working at the intersection of engineering, medicine, and biology.

OCT was used to image the tympanic membrane (eardrum) to determine the presence of biofilm, a complicating factor in ear infections.

In 2011, Diagnostic Photonics, Inc. was launched which develops a handheld probe for imaging the breast cancer resection margin.