I am a tenured professor, the Bhudatt Paliwal endowed chair and the chief of the Radiation Oncology Physics Division in the Department of Human Oncology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It’s my honor to direct one of the nation’s premier radiation oncology physics programs, a group of 20 medical physics faculty and staff. I am also the director of the UW–Madison Medical Physics Residency Program in Radiation Therapy. Nationally, I have served in the presidential chain of both the American Association of Physics in Medicine (AAPM) and the Society of Directors of Academic Medical Physics Programs (SDAMPP) and within various committees of the American Society of Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) and the American Board of Radiology (ABR).

For several years, I have investigated the clinical impact of advanced treatment approaches in radiation oncology, including intensity modulation radiation therapy treatment (IMRT) planning, image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT), respiratory-gated imaging and radiation therapy and functional imaging for treatment planning and response to therapy. My primary area of research is acquisition and analysis of 4DCT images to quantify longitudinal pulmonary functional changes following radiation therapy, and I am currently the principle investigator (PI) of an NCI funded (R01 CA166703) Investigator Initiated Clinical Trial open at UW-Madison (UW16037), whose goal is to design and deliver radiation treatment plans that will improve pulmonary function of radiation therapy patients.

Beginning in 2013, I worked on the clinical development and implementation of MRI-guided Co-60 radiation therapy (ViewRay) at UW-Madison. This program is creating novel research in IGRT, as patients are imaged daily and during treatment delivery, demonstrating the indication for and enabling execution of online adaptation of treatment delivery and providing a wealth of tumor and normal tissue response information.