Biography
Undergraduate work was completed in Engineering Physics at Northwest Nazarene College in 1990. An internship was awarded at Argonne National Laboratory in the High Energy Physics (HEP) division focusing on simulations and experimental particle physics at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL). A Masters degree was awarded in high energy physics from Iowa State University for vertex chamber simulations on the D-Zero experiment at FNAL. This experiment went on to claim the discovery of the top quark in subsequent runs. An additional M.S. was awarded in HEP from the University of Cincinnati prior to changing fields to Biomedical Engineering.
A Ph.D. was obtained in 1997 at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in Biomedical Engineering with research also done in the Department of Radiology at the UT Medical Center. Ph.D. dissertation work focused on dosimetry and stability studies of a boron neutron capture agent using MRI and PET. Compartmental modeling and radiation dosimetry was performed of this agent used for treatment of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM).
A post-doctoral fellowship was accepted in the Department of Medical Physics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Work focused on initiating in-vivo MRI/MRSI spectroscopic imaging of human prostate cancer in conjunction with faculty from UCSF. Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI was also studied in patients with osteogenic and Ewing's sarcomas following neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Correlation of DCE-MRI uptake parameters with the histologic percent necrosis and angiogenic marker VEGF was performed.
The Citigroup Biomedical Imaging Center began construction in 2001 at which time a faculty position was accepted in the WCMC Department of Radiology. Licensure was also obtained with the American Board of Medical Physics with a special competancy in MRI as well along with NYS licensure in Diagnostic Radiological Physics.
