Faculty MMND-ITRO

Dr Erin Angel is a med tech executive with a rare combination of strong scientific background and business acumen. She oversees Global Research & Scientific Affairs for GE HealthCare and has held leadership roles in scientific and medical affairs, as well as product leadership. Her experience includes general management for a business division that was one of the 3 largest Computed Tomography businesses in medical imaging in the US. A medical physicist by training, she is dedicated to positively impacting clinical care by effectively translating innovations to the clinical environment. She began her medical physics training at the University of Wollongong doing a research fellowship with Dr Anatoly Rozenfeld.

Dr Angel holds dual bachelor’s degrees in physics and business economics, and she earned her master’s and PhD in biomedical physics from UCLA.

Dr Stefan Bartzsch is a physicist specialising in medical radiation physics. He obtained his PhD in 2014 from Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg, Germany, with a thesis on Microbeam Radiation Therapy, earning the highest distinction of "Summa cum laude." He completed his habilitation at the Technical University of Munich in 2022.

Currently, Dr Bartzsch leads the Emmy Noether team at the Institute for Radiation Oncology, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Munich, Germany. Since 2018, he has also been a team leader at the Helmholtz-Centre for Health and Environment in Munich. His postdoctoral research included significant work at both the Technical University of Munich and the Institute of Cancer Research in London.

Dr Bartzsch's research focuses on innovative strategies in radiation oncology, aiming to reduce the toxicity of radiation therapy. His interdisciplinary team, consisting of experts in medical physics, engineering, biology, and computational sciences, collaborates with global partners to advance cancer treatment. His work includes the integration of cutting-edge technologies such as deep learning and preclinical in vivo experiments.

Professor Chris Beltran is Chair of the Division of Medical Physics; Director of the Particle Therapy Technical Program; Professor of Medical Physics at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine; and Consultant, at the Department of Radiation Oncology; Mayo Clinic Jacksonville Florida.  Professor Beltran received his PhD in Nuclear and Accelerator Physics from Indiana University in 2003 based on his research at Los Alamos National Laboratory.  He completed his Medical Physics Residency at Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota in 2006 and subsequently accepted a position at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.  In 2011 he rejoined Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to lead the proton treatment planning section for their new proton facility.  In 2020 Professor Beltran joined the team at the Mayo Clinic Florida to help lead the new Carbon/Proton Therapy Facility in Jacksonville Florida, which will be the first carbon therapy facility in the Americas. 

Professor Beltran is an author of over 100 scientific publications and is frequently asked to give conference presentations and visiting professor lectures.  He has mentored several junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students. 

Professor Beltran’s research lab has focused primarily on particle therapy in the last few years with a focus on computational and translational radiation biology.

Stefan Both received his PhD degree from the Babes-Bolyai University in 2005. His physics career started at the Kiricuta Oncology Institute, Romania, in 1996. He immigrated to the US in 2000 and worked in private and academic radiation oncology. In 2008, Dr Both became a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he was able to advance treatment programs in conventional radiotherapy, establish and lead the physics residency program, and spearhead technical advances, including proton therapy. In 2015, he joined Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City  as an Associate Attending and Lead Physicist.

Since September 2017, he is the professor and Head of the Medical Physics in the Department of Radiation Oncology of the University Medical Center Groningen, and as of September 2020 also the Head of the Particle Therapy Research Center.  He has served on committees and working groups  in the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group, the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, Residency Education Program Review Committee of the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Programs, American Board of Radiology and Cancer Research UK, Swiss Science Foundation, etc. He is board certified by the American Board of Radiology in Therapeutic Radiological Physics and a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. At UMCG his main focus is Proton Therapy and his research interest is related to high precision radiotherapy.

Dr Nicolas Depauw began his academic journey with a General Engineering degree from E.S.E.O in Angers, France, specialising in Computer Science and Electronics. He then pursued a dual Master's degree in Medical Physics at the University of Wollongong, Australia, which included a transformative internship at Massachusettes General Hospital (MGH), where he contributed to the deployment of Pencil Beam Scanning (PBS) technology.

Following diverse roles in research and clinical practice, Dr Depauw achieved certification as a therapeutic physicist from the American Board of Radiology (ABR) in 2013. He completed his PhD in 2015 in collaboration with the University of Wollongong, culminating in his appointment as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School (HMS).

Currently, Dr Depauw serves as the Physics Lead for Proton Treatment Planning at MGH and as an Assistant Professor at HMS. His work focuses on advancing the field of medical physics through cutting-edge research and clinical innovation.

Professor Valentin Djonov entered a research position in the Department of Clinical Research at the University of Bern, Switzerland, in 1992, after several years in neuro- and general surgery.

In 1996 he became a research assistant in the Division of Developmental Biology at the Institute of Anatomy, Bern. This was followed by his habilitation (assistant professorship) in 2002 followed by associate professor in 2006 at the same institute.

In September 2007, Valentin Djonov was promoted to full professor and became co-director of the Institute of Anatomy in Fribourg, Switzerland. After a period of 3 years, he returned to Berne where he is currently the Director of the Institute of Anatomy and medical advisor at the Translational Research Center SITEM, Switzerland.

The main scientific interest of his group is the radio-biological effects induced by Spatially Fractionated Radiation Therapy (SFRT). SFRT is a novel radiotherapy technique using spatially fractionated X-rays to produce alternating regions of high and low-dose deposition in the target tissue. This results in unique radiation/tissue interactions that expands the therapeutic index of radiation therapy by increasing tumour control, including that of radioresistant malignancies, while simultaneously exhibiting remarkable normal tissue sparing even when delivering peak doses of hundreds of Grays. SFRT demonstrated the first promising results by treatment of inoperable, radioresistant lesions in human and pet patients.

Professor Valentin Djonov is the author of more than 300 scientific papers with more than 16’000 citations (h-index=65) and numerous patents.

Professor Marco Durante is Director of the Biophysics Department at GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research (Darmstadt, Germany), Full Professor of Physics at the Technical University of Darmstadt and at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, and Adjunct Professor at the Gunma College of Medicine in Japan. 

Professor Durante got his PhD in physics in 1992 at the University Federico II performing part of his studies at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Berkeley, CA, USA), and has worked as postdoc at the NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (Houston, TX, USA) and NIRS-QST (Chiba, Japan). He is generally recognised as world leader in the field of particle radiobiology and medical physics.

He is co-author of over 500 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals (Scopus h-index=65) and received many awards for his research efforts including the 2024 Ellen Gleditsch award of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, the 2023 Henry Kaplan award of the International Association for Radiation Research (IARR), the 2020 Gioacchino Failla Award of the US Radiation Research Society (RRS), the 2013 Bacq&Alexander Award of the European Radiation Research Society (ERRS), and the 2013 Applied Nuclear Physics Award of the European Physics Society (EPS).

He was President of the International Association for Radiation research (IARR) 2011-2015 and is currently President of the Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group (PTCOG). He has received many grants to support his research, primarily by ERC, ESA, EU H2020, NIH, and BMBF. His main scientific achievements has been the assessment of the biological effects of accelerated charged particles using both in vitro systems and samples from humans (astronauts and cancer patients). He demonstrated the validity of space radiation risk models by comparing the mathematical results with biomarkers, and with similar techniques he proved that charged particle therapy can spare the immune system thus representing an ideal tool when combined to immunotherapy.

Professor Durante's research interests include:

• Radiation biophysics
• Particle therapy
• Space radiation protection

Dr Stuart George is a physicist working for the Space Radiation Analysis Group at NASA Johnson Space Center.

Dr George’s research is focused on space radiation protection, and specifically on the development of Hybrid Pixel radiation detectors to protect NASA crew during human spaceflight. Dr George has worked on a large variety of flight instruments during his career at NASA, recent highlights include serving as PI for radiation measurements during the recent Polaris Dawn mission, instrument science lead for the HERA detector on Artemis I and LETS detector on Biosentinel. Dr George also serves as PI for the Compact Electron Proton Spectrometer, a space weather early warning instrument funded by the NASA Development and Advancement of Lunar Instrumentation program.

Dr George’s research has been published in Nature and featured in a variety of media outlets including CNN, Reuters and ABC Australia. Prior to working for NASA, Dr George held a Marie Curie fellowship at CERN and completed degrees at the University of Wollongong (Australia) and University of Sheffield (UK).

Dr Taku Inaniwa, PhD, is a group leader of treatment beam research group at the Institute for Quantum Medical Science, National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) in Japan. His research focuses on developing dose calculation algorithms and biological models used for charged-particle therapy treatment planning. From April 2022, he has concurrently served as a guest professor at the Division of Health Science, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University.

Professor Katia Parodi is the Chair of Medical Physics at the Physics Faculty of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Munich, where she initiated a dedicated curriculum for Medical Physics within the MSc in Physics.  

She received her PhD in Physics from the University of Dresden, Germany, in 2004. She then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. In 2006 she returned to Germany as a tenured scientist and group leader at the Heidelberg Ion Therapy Center, obtaining in 2009 her Habilitation from the Heidelberg University.

Her main interests are in high-precision image-guided radiotherapy focusing on ions, from computational modelling to experimental developments of novel methods for delivery, imaging and in-vivo ion range monitoring for pre-clinical and clinical applications. For her work Katia Parodi received national and international recognition, including the Behnken Berger Award in 2006, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Bruce Hasegawa Young Investigator Medical Imaging Science Award in 2009, the AAPM (American Association of Physicists in Medicine) John S. Laughlin Young Scientist in 2015 and an ERC (European Research Council) Consolidator grant in 2016. In 2017-2018 she served as president of the German Society for Medical Physics. She has been the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Physics in Medicine and Biology since 2021, and an AAPM Fellow since 2024.

Associate Professor Dale Prokopovich has been working at MedAustron since 2020 starting as an Accelerator Physicist. He is currently the Director of Accelerator Technology and Co-Head of the Technology Business Unit since April 2024. During his time at MedAustron, Dale has been involved in commissioning projects for patient treatment including carbon ions in IR3 as well as the development of future accelerator improvements for therapy. Dale has also been very active in academia, resulting in academic appointments including an Associate Professorship from the University of Wollongong and affiliate positions at the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne. He has also been heavily involved in multiple European particle therapy collaborations (HITRIplus, EuroSIG, IFast-REX, etc.) and the Organiser and Chair of the 2024 International Slow Extraction Workshop hosted in February at MedAustron.

Before moving to MedAustron, Dale was at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation for 16 years where he was heavily involved in detector technology development as well as the development of Research Infrastructure for Australia, including several of the proposed Australian particle therapy facilities. Dale graduated from Wollongong University with degrees in both Science (Physics, Hons) and Computer Science before being awarded a PhD in aviation and space microdosimetry, also from Wollongong University. Dale has been heavily involved for over a decade with the various proposed Australian particle therapy centres including the various business cases and technology assessment process. Dale continues to support the Australian particle therapy community, proposals and business cases being developed.

Professor Reinhard W. Schulte is a distinguished Radiation Research and Particle Therapy Professor at Loma Linda University. With a career spanning over thirty years, Professor Schulte has not only made significant contributions but also pioneered the field of nanodosimetry and particle therapy. His research, which focuses on understanding ionization processes at the nanometer scale and their implications for optimising particle therapy treatment planning, is truly groundbreaking.

Professor Schulte's work in nanodosimetry has led to the development of advanced mathematical models that enhance the precision of dose distribution in charged particle radiotherapy. His innovative approaches have been instrumental in improving the efficacy of treatments, particularly in carbon-ion therapy.

In addition to his research, Professor Schulte is actively involved in interdisciplinary collaborations, including his work with Professor Anatoly Rozenfeld from the University of Wollongong in micro- and nanodosimetry and proton computed tomography. He has also co-authored numerous publications with esteemed colleagues. Most recently, he has worked with Professor Keith Schubert from Baylor University and his then-graduate student, Dr Ha Nguyen, in collaboration with researchers from MD Anderson Cancer Center and Stanford University, on exploring the simulation of alternating electric fields in preclinical models of glioblastoma, which is his latest interest.

Professor Schulte's dedication to advancing medical physics and particle therapy has not only earned him recognition and invitations to speak at prestigious conferences worldwide but also inspired a new generation of scientists and clinicians. His commitment to fostering the next generation through his teaching and mentorship is a beacon of hope for the future of the field.

Professor Elisabeth Schültke is a trained neurosurgeon and practicing radiation oncologist at the Rostock University Medical Center in the North of Germany. Active in the biomedical synchrotron research community for more than two decades, she is particularly interested in the promising therapeutic options offered by spatially fractionated radiotherapy in general and microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) in particular.

On the DESY campus in Hamburg, Germany, Elisabeth was one of the leading lobbyists for a high dose rate irradiation research program at the PETRA III synchrotron, a dream that has come true in 2022 with the construction of a dedicated research module at beamline P61A. 

Her favourite current project challenge: establishing a canine brain tumour research and therapy program at the Australian Synchrotron, in preparation of a first human clinical MRT trial, in collaboration with veterinarians, local colleagues and the team of Michael Lerch of the Centre for Medical Radiation Physics at the University of Wollongong.

Professor Cinzia Talamonti is an Associate Professor of Medical Physics at the University of Florence. She earned her PhD in Physics from the University of Perugia in 1995 and completed her specialisation in Medical Physics at the University of Florence in 2002. Since 2020, she has served as the President of the School of Radiologic Technology at the University of Florence.

Professor Talamonti teaches Physics at the Medicine and Surgery School, Medical Physics at the Physics and Astrophysics School, and Physics Applied to Radiotherapy at the Radiographer School, all within the University of Florence.

Her research career began in medical physics, with a primary focus on radiotherapy. Since 1999, she has been active in the National Health Service Medical Physics Unit at Careggi University Hospital in Florence. Her research interests include conformal, stereotactic, intensity-modulated, and advanced rotational treatment techniques, addressing both dosimetric and imaging aspects, which are crucial for advanced radiotherapy treatments.

Professor Talamonti is also the Principal Investigator of several projects focusing on Artificial Intelligence applications in medicine. Additionally, she is a co-inventor of two patents: the “Bidimensional Dosimetric Detector” (FI2006A000166, patent US8563936) and the “A-Si Detector” (102021000003275).

She has published extensively in high-impact scientific journals (ORCID: [https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2955-6451]) and has led numerous research projects throughout her career.

Dr Maria Thor is an assistant attending medical physicist with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre. Her main area of interest is in comprehensive outcome modelling to inform and encourage individualised treatments. Dr Thor’s research focuses on radiation dose-response modelling. She has investigated numerous different angles of individualisation such as the incorporation of patient-reported outcomes, the inclusion of imaging information, analytes acquired from blood, and a range of patient-specific information reflecting the disease, treatment, and an individual’s underlying characteristics. Her ultimate ambition is to translate her research models into updated treatment guidelines to better tailor treatments with regard to an individual’s anticipated radiation dose tolerance.

Dr Thor obtained her medical physics degree from Lund University (Sweden) and completed her PhD at Aarhus University (Denmark), after which she joined the Department of Medical Physics at MSK for a postdoctoral fellowship.

Dr Marie-Catherine Vozenin is currently the Head of Radiotherapy and Radiobiology at the Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève. The research projects that Marie-Catherine develops with her team have a primary goal of discovering innovative tools able to protect normal tissue and enhance tumour control. One significant accomplishment has been the development of a groundbreaking radiation therapy technique called FLASH radiotherapy, which offers to reduce normal tissue toxicity and eradicate tumours in various organs including the brain, lungs and skin. Marie-Catherin and her team have successfully tested this new approach of RT on various species, including mice, zebrafish, mini-pigs, and cats. Their efforts have primarily focused on exploring the distinct biological reactions triggered by FLASH exposure on normal tissue and tumours and recently they found that FLASH could overcome radiation resistance. A crucial aspect of their work involves ensuring the advancement of FLASH into safe and meaningful clinical trials for human cancer patients. 

Professor Jeannie Wong studied Biomedical Engineering, followed by a Master of Medical Physics at the Universiti Malaya. She received her PhD from the University of Wollongong, Australia. She started her career at the Department of Biomedical Imaging, Faculty of Medicine, the Universiti Malaya, as a senior lecturer in 2011.  She is the coordinator of the UM Master of Medical Physics program, accredited by the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM), UK. It is the only postgraduate medical physics program outside the UK and Ireland that has this accreditation.

During her PhD study, Jeannie was instrumental in the development of a new field of medical dosimetry in radiation therapy quality assurance with high spatial resolution semiconductor dosimetry and its applications in radiation therapy quality assurance. She has since further extended her research to include dosimetry in diagnostic imaging and patient-specific dosimetry. She has published more than 85 papers to date. Jeannie was promoted to associate professor in 2018 and to full professorship in 2024. Her research interests include radiation dosimetry, radiotherapy, medical imaging and radiomics. She had supervised, to completion, 1 postdoctoral candidate, 7 PhD students, 2 masters by research students, and more than 45 masters by coursework students.

IN 2019, Jeannie received the South East Asian Federation of Organisations of Medical Physics (SEAFOMP) Young Leader Award.

Professor Laura Dawson is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto, and a practicing radiation oncologist at the Radiation Medicine Program, at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, in Toronto. She is an internationally recognised leader in hepatobiliary cancer and in oligo-metastases. Her research has primarily focused on the implementation of advanced radiation technologies (e.g. stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) and image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT)) to improve outcomes and reduce the risk of toxicity of cancer patients. She has led phase I, II and more recently, phase III clinical trials of radiation therapy to treat patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and liver metastases. Dr Dawson has published over 200 scientific papers and has mentored over 50 students from around the world. She has received numerous awards for her teaching, research and impact in oncology. She was the 2018 Canadian Association of Radiation Oncology (CARO) Gordon Richards lecturer, and she is the past Chair and past President of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

Professor Madhur K Garg is the Medical Director of Radiation Oncology, Director of Montefiore-Einstein's Proton Therapy Program and Co-Director of the Stereotactic Radiation Therapy Program at Montefiore Medical Center, New York, USA. He holds an academic appointment as Professor of Radiation Oncology, Urology and Otolaryngology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, USA.

He earned his medical degree at King George’s Medical College, Lucknow, and completed his residency in radiation oncology at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Hospital in Chicago and Montefiore in New York City. He has a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) in healthcare from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.

Professor Garg is the recipient of the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Investigator Award and the US Department of Defense Physician Research Award for his work on combining novel targeted therapies with radiation therapy. He is listed as one of the “New York Top Doctors,” “America’s Top Oncologists” and “Best Doctors in America.”

Professor Garg serves on several international panels/committees, as well as international societies such as the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the American College of Radiology (ACR), Radiosurgery Society (RSS) and the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

He is a principal investigator of several national and international research studies involving novel cancer treatment modalities and is actively involved in quality of life and healthcare disparities issues for cancer patients.

His areas of interest are as follows:

1. Advanced Technologies in Cancer treatment (Particle therapy, SRS, IMRT and IGRT)
2. Functional imaging and adaptive planning for CNS and Head/Neck malignancies
3. Translational research involving the role of Anti-Angiogenesis and Immunotherapy in radiation therapy
4. Addressing Socio-economic Disparities in Cancer Care
5. Diet, Nutrition and Cancer

Professor Chandan Guha, MBBS, PhD obtained his MBBS from the University of Calcutta, India and his PhD in Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston. Chandan Guha is a Professor and Vice Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology and the Founding Director of the Einstein Institute for Onco-Physics, at Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY. He is also a professor of pathology and urology. Since the 1990s, Professor Guha has been one of the early investigators to initiate research on the immunomodulation of radiation therapy, whereby irradiated tumours can act as autologous in situ tumour vaccines. The Institute for Onco-Physics is spearheading research in radiation biology, therapeutic ultrasound and functional imaging by scientists and clinicians working together to translate bench-to-bedside research for designing novel clinical trials in Immuno-oncology and regenerative medicine. Professor Guha is also developing several radio-mitigators and drugs for tissue stem cell regeneration as medical countermeasures against radiation.

He is a visiting faculty of the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, Delhi, India. He has several patents, including the invention of an ultrasound device (SonoImmune®) for therapeutic in situ cancer vaccination. He is a co-founder of BioConvergent Health, a biotechnology initiative, founded at Montefiore-Einstein.

Dr Nancy Y. Lee MD, FASTRO is Vice Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology focusing on Experimental Therapeutics. She is also the Proton Service Chief and the Chief of the Head and Neck Radiation Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is also the Associate Director of the Prevention Interception Program at MSKCC. Dr Lee has appointments in both the Radiation Oncology Department and Early Drug Development Group and is currently the Section Head of the Multimodality Therapeutic Section within Early Drug Development.

Dr Lee was born in Taipei, Taiwan, grew up until age 9 and then immigrated to the USA. She is an internationally renowned academic physician whose research, publications (almost 300 peer-reviewed papers), 3 of the best-selling target delineation books, and lectures have helped radiation oncologists across multiple radiation oncologists harness the powers of IMRT and proton therapy. She has dedicated her career to embracing technology, modernizing clinical practice, and bringing radiation oncology to the forefront of cancer medicine. She is also active in the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer where she is a co-author of a consensus statement on immunotherapy use for head and neck cancer and has established multiple industry relationships to take command of trials combining novel therapeutic agents with radiation. Dr Lee has served on multiple ASTRO committees and editorial boards. At MSKCC, she has been a tireless advocate for patients and dedicated herself to the education of trainees (receiving multiple ARRO teaching awards and mentoring over 100 radiation oncologists around the world to successful careers of their own in academic and private practices across the country.

Her research focuses on developing novel strategies to personalise cancer treatment with the goal of improving tumor cure and quality of life after radiation treatment for head and neck cancer where she has received several NIH R01 funding, including:

(1) Designing/evaluating novel PET and/or MR imaging metrics to select the best candidates for radiation dose reduction, currently the de-escalation dose is 30Gy with chemotherapy for select locally advanced Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) head and neck squamous cell carcinoma with the ultimate goal of individualizing both radiation and systemic therapy; de-escalation strategies for nasopharyngeal carcinoma, HPV negative tumours; thyroid cancer.

(2) Assessing biologic targeted therapies and using biomarkers such as plasma EBV DNA to individualise treatment for nasopharyngeal, thyroid, and plasma HPV DNA to personalise oropharyngeal cancer; cell-free plasma DNA or circulating tumour DNA to direct therapy across different head and neck/thyroid cancer; escalate therapy based on biologic or imaging correlates; and screening for HPV+ oropharyngeal cancer. She is the principal investigator for an international NRG trial personalizing treatment for nasopharyngeal cancer using plasma EBV DNA.

(3) Establishing standard treatment guidelines for therapies such as intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), and proton beam for head and neck cancer and focusing efforts on developing FLASH proton therapy with the goal of further toxicity reduction.

Her top priority is to help radiation oncology continue to evolve to elevate patient care. She believes this requires actively engaging and providing opportunities for practitioners in all different settings and phases of their careers. Outside of work, Dr Lee is very involved in her church and enjoys travelling with her husband and two boys.

Professor Thomas “Rock” Mackie has a Bachelor of Science in Physics (1980) from the University of Saskatchewan and a PhD in Physics (1984) from the University of Alberta. He was a Professor of Medical Physics at the University of Wisconsin from 1987 to 2014 with his last role as Director of Medical Engineering at the Morgridge Institute for Research and since been an emeritus professor.

He has been awarded the Coolidge Gold Medal from the AAPM (2014), the Gold Medal from ASTRO (2019) and the John Mallard Award for Innovation from the IOMP (2019) and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He is a commissioner of the International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU) as well as the Vice-Chair of its Board. Rock Mackie has a long entrepreneurial career both as an academic and since retiring as a professor. He is best known for the Pinnacle, a radiation therapy treatment planning system, and TomoTherapy, the first MVCT-guided IMRT company. He is a co-founder of Leo Cancer Care, which is developing upright radiotherapy, OnLume a fluorescent-guided surgery company, and a board member of Shine Medical Technologies which is developing medical isotopes using fusion and fission nuclear reactions.

Sean S. Park, MD, PhD is a Professor in Radiation Oncology, in the College of Medicine at Mayo Clinic Rochester. Dr Park completed his undergraduate studies Magna Cum Laude at the University of California at San Diego and his MD/PhD in immunology at the Chicago Medical School with Alpha Omega Alpha distinction. He was a chief resident at William Beaumont Hospital before joining the faculty at Mayo Clinic.

Dr Park’s clinical expertise includes stereotactic body radiotherapy, image-guided radiotherapy, intensity-modulated proton therapy, spatially fractionated radiotherapy, and HDR brachytherapy. His research focus is improving clinical outcomes in patients with metastatic cancers. His complementary translational research focuses on the immune-induction effects of radiotherapy to develop novel treatments through a multidisciplinary team approach by combining the latest technology in radiotherapy with immunotherapy to improve outcomes in metastatic cancer patients while safely minimising side effects. Dr Park has been funded by NCI since 2015. Dr Park has also served as co-chair of the Radiation Oncology Safety and Incident Learning System to identify potentially harmful incidents and to implement effective and efficient safety barriers.

James M. Metz, is the Henry K. Pancoast Professor and Chair of Radiation Oncology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He oversees the academic practices at 15 radiation treatment facilities including three proton therapy centers. Dr Metz also serves as the Executive Director of OncoLink, the world’s largest award-winning Internet resource for cancer information and proton-based training.

Dr Metz led the development of the 5-room Roberts Proton Center, the largest proton centre in the world completely integrated with conventional cancer services. He also oversaw the development of two single-room proton centres at Lancaster General Hospital in central Pennsylvania in 2022 and at Virtua Voorhees Hospital in South Jersey in 2023.

Dr Metz has become an international leader in the application of proton therapy for the treatment of a variety of malignancies. His clinical interests include the multidisciplinary management of gastrointestinal cancers, the integration of proton therapy in the cancer treatment paradigm, and the expansion of quality and safety initiatives to improve clinical outcomes for patients.

Dr Andreas Rimner, MD, is the Vice Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Freiburg, Germany.

He is a nationally and internationally renowned thoracic radiation oncologist and clinician scientist. He obtained his Medical Degree at the University of Tubingen, Germany, and spent a research year at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), New York, and much of his final year rotations at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA. Subsequently he emigrated to the US where he continued his education as a postdoctoral research fellow, intern, and resident at MSKCC. From 2010 until January 2024, he led the Thoracic Team in the Department of Radiation Oncology at MSKCC, last in the position of Director of Thoracic Radiation Oncology Research and Associate Attending/Professor. Dr. Rimner is the Past Thoracic Track Chair of the Annual Meeting of ASTRO, ABR board member for Thoracic Cancers and Sarcomas, Past Vice President of ITMIG, Board Member of IMIG and Member of the IASLC Staging and Prognostic Factors Committee. He has led numerous prospective phase I-III clinical trials including a phase III NRG Oncology trial and published over 250 manuscripts.

Professor Carl J. Rossi is currently a professor of radiation medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and the medical director of the California Protons Cancer Therapy Center. He has been involved in clinical proton beam therapy since 1991 with a concentration on genitourinary malignancies. He has been the author of approximately twenty-five papers on the use of proton beam therapy in the treatment of prostate cancer and has also been a co-investigator in several prospective clinical trials involving proton beam treatment of prostate cancer, breast cancer, and lymphoma.

A native Californian, he graduated from Claremont McKenna College in 1984 with a degree in Biology and received his MD degree from Loyola University of Chicago Stritch School of Medicine in 1988, followed by a residency in radiation medicine at Loma Linda University. He also served as a medical officer in the United States Naval Reserve. Other interests include athletics and aviation.

Professor Wolfgang Tomé works at Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. He is the Director of the Division of Therapeutic Medical Physics of Montefiore Medical Center and the Director of Medical Physics of the Institute for Onco-Physics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He holds appointments as Professor of Radiation Oncology and Professor of Neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. 

In addition to these appointments, he holds appointments as Visiting Professor of Medical Physics at the Centre of Medical Radiation Physics at the University of Wollongong, Australia and the University of Wisconsin at Madison and is an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Physics at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

He has over 285 peer-reviewed publications, 17 book chapters, 3 books, over 250 abstracts, and 10 patents to his credit, and is a fellow of the American Association of Medical Physics and a fellow of the American Society of Radiation Oncology. His current research interests include Online adaptive and real-time motion-adaptive radiation therapy; Adaptive monitoring of radiation therapy using statistical control and forecasting; Decision support systems for radiation therapy using machine learning; Techniques to mitigate normal tissue injury; biologically guided therapy; MR-guided therapy; SBRT; and Immunoadjuvant cancer therapies.

Dr Yoshiya (Josh) Yamada, is a senior attending radiation oncologist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre. His clinical and research focus is aspects of stereotactic radiation therapy, particularly in reference to spine tumours. He serves as co-director of the Spine Oncology Service. He has served as invited faculty at many national and international forums, authored nearly 250 peer-reviewed papers, and multiple book chapters, and as senior editor of two textbooks. 

Josh is an avid fly fisherman. He and his wife, Suzy, have five children.

Professor Michael J Zelefsky, a renowned radiation oncology leader, is a radiation oncology professor and serves as the vice-chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the NYU Langone Medical Center. He also serves as the Director of Brachytherapy for the Cancer Center and as the leader of the Genitourinary Cancer Disease Management Group at the Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU.

As one of the world’s authorities on prostate cancer treatment, Dr Zelefsky has made major contributions to the field, shaping clinical practice guidelines and influencing treatment protocols worldwide. He was instrumental in the development of intensity-modulated radiotherapy for the treatment of prostate cancer, which is now employed routinely throughout the world. He is also a renowned opinion leader in the area of stereotactic body radiotherapy for prostate cancer and well as the type of internal radiotherapy known as brachytherapy. He will work closely with Perlmutter Cancer Center’s urologic and medical oncology teams to create a sophisticated, multidisciplinary approach to all aspects of diagnosis, treatment, and side effect management. Dr Zelefsky has built one of the largest brachytherapy services in the world and has continued such programs in the Department of Radiation Oncology and Perlmutter Cancer Center.

An alum of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Dr Zelefsky completed his internship at Hackensack Medical Center and his residency at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He held numerous positions during his time at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, most recently as the chief of the brachytherapy service, vice chair of clinical research, and director of genitourinary radiation oncology. He also has co-authored more than 370 peer-reviewed articles, with his work appearing in top-tier publications including the Journal of Clinical Oncology, JAMA Oncology, and the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics. He is the editor-in-chief of Brachytherapy, an international multidisciplinary medical journal that provides research into the use of brachytherapy. He has served as an active member and leader of other professional organizations, such as the American Brachytherapy Society, American Cancer Society, and American Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.