On April 21, 2023, our program hosted a grand symposium featuring an unprecedented three consecutive Presidents of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), which is the largest medical physics professional organization. After a sumptuous lunch, Mark Oldham PhD (Program Director) and Chris Willett MD (Chair of Radiation Oncology) opened the first half of the event. Jim Dobbins PhD and Ehsan Samei PhD, President of AAPM in 2021 and 2023 respectively, shared wisdom about the past and future of physics-informed medicine. It’s important to reflect on the foundations of the field and to look ahead to the potential future advancements. Anuj Kapadia PhD returned from Oak Ridge National Lab to chair the discussion section. This portion of the program was also livestreamed as part of the monthly forum for the Center for Virtual Imaging Trials.
The second half began with a series of fast-paced “power pitch” talks from student finalists. Faculty and students then enjoyed a poster session with an impressive display of 30 posters showcasing their hard work and research. It’s always exciting to see young scientists presenting their work and contributing to the broader scientific community. The event concluded with remarks and awards by Dan Bourland PhD of Wake Forest University School of Medicine and President of AAPM in 2022. Overall, it was a fantastic event!
Honorable Mentions:
Junlan Lu (Advisor: Bastiaan Driehuys, PhD)
“Quantitative mapping of cardiopulmonary oscillations using hyperpolarized 129Xe”
Kevin Filip (Advisor: Chu Wang, PhD)
“Field Uniformity Analysis of a Shepherd Mk I-68A Cs-137 Irradiator”
PhD Students Poster Winners:
First Place:
Olivia Dickinson (Advisors: Dean Darnell, PhD and Truong Trong-Kha, PhD)
“A Flexible Integrated Parallel Reception, Excitation, and Shimming (iPRES) Array for MRI and Localized B0 Shimming”
Second Place:
Zachary Gude (Advisor: Joel Greenberg, PhD)
“Recent developments toward a high resolution 3D X-ray diffraction imaging (XRDI) system”
Third Place:
Cindy McCabe (Advisor: Ehsan Samei, PhD)
“A systematic assessment of photon-counting CT for bone mineral density and microarchitecture quantifications”
MS Students Poster Winners:
First Place:
Doreen Dai (Advisor: Bastiaan Driehuys, PhD)
“SNR and Dose Considerations for Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy”
Second Place:
Jack Stevens (Advisor: Kyle Lafata, PhD)
“Dynamic radiomics: A novel, physics-based approach to data assimilation”
Third Place:
Casey Miller (Advisor: Joel Greenberg, PhD)
“Quantifying the Sensitivity in X-ray Diffraction Measurements in Thick Tissue Samples”
