Duke Medical Physics

We are delighted to announce Barry Andricks, MS (Advisor: Mark Oldham, PhD), has completed the defense of their Master's thesis, titled " An Investigation of C. Elegans as a Model Organism for FLASH Research Utilizing TUNL FEL" on March 20, 2026. Congratulations!

Seth Wilcox, MS (Advisor: Mark Oldham, PhD), congratulations on the completion of your Master thesis defense, titled “A Comprehensive Characterization of Dosimetry Methods and Beam Quality for In-Vivo Applications of FLASH Radiation Therapy " on March 20, 2026. Congratulations!

Daniel Murphy, MS (Advisor: Kyle Lafata, PhD and Casey Lee, PhD), congratulations on defending his Master’s thesis titled: “Quantitative Analysis of Post-Radiation Lymph Nodes” on March 17, 2026. Congratulations to Daniel for reaching this important academic milestone!

Congratulations on defending your thesis, Kaitlin Jennings, MS (Advisor: Gregory Palmer, PhD) titled: “Imaging Radiation-Induced Biological Response: Mechanisms of Tumor Control and Normal Tissue Remodeling.”

Congratulations to Wilson Oswald who successfully defended his Master's Scholarship Project titled: "Toward Reconfigurable Low-field MRI Scanners: Separable Gradient Coils for a Cylindrical Permanent Magnet Array" (Advisors: Dean Darnell, PhD, Trong-Kha Truong, PhD)

Congratulations to Dongrong Yang, who successfully defended his Doctoral Dissertation titled "Developing Intelligent Reinforcement Learning Bots for Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning" (Advisor's: Qingrong Jackie Wu, PhD, Yang Sheng, PhD)

Recently, Duke University faculty and students had the honor of attending and presenting at this years Southeast AAPM conference! From presentations on genomics and clinical projects to debate on the use of AI, Duke University had great representation! 💙 ☢️

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Irina Vergalasova (PhD ’13), recipient of the Duke Medical Physics Distinguished Alumni Award, recognizing her outstanding clinical, educational, and professional contributions. duke.is/2025DMPGPDAA

Throwback to last year during the Duke Medical Physics 20th Anniversary Gala! What a wonderful accomplishment to have such a renowned program last over two decades! A toast to 20 more! 🥂 ✨ 🎓

Congratulations to Trevor McKeown, PhD, for successfully defending his thesis on “Computationally Efficient Method for Estimating the Impact of Cardiorespiratory Motion on Patients Undergoing Stereotactic Arrhythmia Radioablation” on November 21, under Advisor Deshan Yang, PhD.

Duke MedPhys had a terrific time at the football tailgate this weekend! The weather was beautiful, the burgers were delicious and everyone had so much fun! Not a bad way to spend a Saturday!

It is with pleasure that we share the news of Mridul Bhattarai, PhD (Advisor: Ehsan Samei, PhD), successfully defending their Doctoral Dissertation titled " In silico Modeling, Optimization, and Harmonization of Photon-Counting Detector Computed Tomography" on November 18, 2025.

Happy International Medical Physics Day! Medical physicists play a huge role in advancing healthcare. Let’s honor their dedication to improving patient care and pushing the boundaries of medical science. Here's to the heroes behind the scenes in labs and clinics around the world!

REMINDER: The Duke Medical Physics Program is hosting a virtual networking event for interested applicants on Thursday, November 6th from 4:00-5:15 pm on Zoom! Registration is required and can be found by the QR code in this post or at medicalphysics.duke.edu/event/scientis…

Looking back on fall retreat a few weeks ago! Alumni speaker presentations, cool vintage cars, and lots of fun! 🍂 🛶 ☀️

This week the Duke Medical Physics Program welcomed @mmahesh1 as a guest speaker at our weekly seminar presentations. Both students and faculty had the opportunity to ask questions and participate in meaningful discussions with the current AAPM president!

👀 stay tuned! 👀

Duke Medical Physics is proud to welcome our 18 Master's and 4 PhD students to the program! A welcoming reception was held last week to celebrate the connections, inspiration and excitement for their academic journey ahead! 🌟

swipe left to see more moments from #AAPM2025 ! From early morning runs on Capitol Hill to visiting the National Museum of African American History, Duke students and faculty became the ultimate tourists while tacking important topics in Medical Physics! Can't wait for next year!