AAPM Presents Annual Awards

During the July meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, in Montreal, Canada, several individuals were recognized for their contributions to the field of medical physics.

Bhudatt Paliwal received the William D. Coolidge Award, AAPM’s most prestigious honor. He was cited for his distinguished scientific and professional career, including his contributions to the literature, his service to AAPM and the broader medical physics community, and his research and collaborations in radiation oncology. Paliwal is director of radiation oncology physics and a professor of human oncology and medical physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

The Award for Achievement in Medical Physics, given by AAPM for outstanding career achievement in medical physics practice, education, organizational affairs, and professional activities, went to Amos Norman, professor emeritus of radiation oncology at UCLA.

This year’s Farrington Daniels Award, given for the best paper on radiation dosimetry published in Medical Physics during the previous year, was shared by Mark Oldham. Jeffrey Siewerdsen, Anil Shetty, and David Jaffray for their paper entitled “High Resolution Gel-Dosimetry by Optical-CT and MR Scanning.” Oldham is a staff physicist and assistant professor of radiation oncology at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. Shetty is chief of magnetic resonance physics in the diagnostic radiology department at that hospital. Siewerdsen is a staff scientist at the Ontario Cancer Institute, University Health Network, in Toronto, Canada. Jaffray holds the Fidani Chair in Radiation Physics and heads the radiation therapy physics department at Princess Margaret Hospital, University Health Network, in Toronto. He is also an associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Toronto.

The Sylvia Sorkin Greenfield Award, given for the best paper on a topic other than radiation dosimetry, was also presented at the meeting. The following individuals received the award for their paper entitled “Detection of Tumorigenesis in Rat Bladders with Optical Coherence Tomography”: Yingtian Pan, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at SUNY Stonybrook, John Lavelle, assistant professor of urologic surgery and director of urodynamics and neurourology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Sheldon Bastacky, associate professor of pathology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and a staff pathologist at the university’s medical center, Susan Meyers, research specialist in the department of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Georgi Pirtskhalaishvili, AFUD Scholar in the urology department at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Mark Zeidel, Jack D. Myers Professor and Chair in the department of medicine and a professor of cell biology and physiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and Daniel Farkas, professor of pathology and bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.