The Duke Medical Physics Graduate Program, in conjunction with the Departments of Physics and Biomedical Engineering, held the first Physics in Medicine tri-program interdisciplinary summit, which brought together students and faculties from Medical Physics, Physics, and Biomedical Engineering. Dr. T. Rockwell Mackie, Emeritus Professor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Co-founder of Tomotherapy, Inc., gave the plenary talk, titled “Physics, Medicine, Engineering: What Does the Future Hold?” In his talk, Dr. Mackie highlighted the importance of looking for gaps between physical sciences and engineering disciplinaries and operating at these edges to solve current challenges facing the medical physics field. In addition, Dr. Ehsan Samei (Medical Physics Program Director), Dr. Warren Warren (Chair of Physics Department), and Dr. Kathy Nightingale (BME Professor and Director of the Medical Imaging Training Program) delivered remarks for the event.
Over 30 students and faculties presented their research works during the event through poster session, which had five main themes: EM Radiation and Energy in Medicine and Biology, Applications of Modeling and Simulation, Measurement Instrumentation in Action, Physics in Medical Imaging, and Physics in Radiation Therapy. Congratulations to Robert Morhard (1st place), James Spencer (2nd place), and Paul Yoon (3rd place) for winning the best poster presentation award.