Workshop Speakers
Biographical Sketches
Charles M. Anderson, M. D., Ph.D., is the chief consultant for diagnostic services in the Veterans Health Administration. He prepares policy and coordinates national diagnostic initiatives. Dr. Anderson received a Ph.D. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University, an M.D. from Stanford University, and residency training in diagnostic radiology from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Anderson was a clinical professor of radiology at UCSF until 2008. He is a practicing radiologist at Durham North Carolina VA Medical Center.
David J. Brenner, Ph.D., is the director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University, as well as the director of the Radiological Research Accelerator Facility and principal investigator of the Center for High-Throughput Minimally-lnvasive Radiation Biodosimetry, which focuses on developing mechanistic models for the effects of ionizing radiation on living systems, both at the chromosomal and animal levels. He divides his research time between the effects of high doses of ionizing radiation (relating to radiation therapy) and the effects of low doses of radiation (relating to medical, environmental, and occupational exposures).
James A. Brink, M.D., is professor and chair of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology at Yale University School of Medicine. He earned a B.S. degree in electrical engineering at Purdue University and an M.D. at Indiana University before completing his residency and fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. While he has broad experience in medical
imaging, including utilization and management of imaging resources, he has particular interest and expertise in issues related to the monitoring and control of medical radiation exposure, which can be compounded if testing is superfluous, unnecessary, or redundant.
Mythreyi Bhargavan Chatfield, Ph.D., is the director of data registries at the American College of Radiology (ACR) in Reston, Virginia. In this position, she manages national registries focused on improving practice quality in radiology. Dr. Chatfield’s current areas of focus include practice quality in radiology, performance metrics, and radiation doses from medical procedures. She is a council member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP), an organization chartered by the U.S. Congress to develop expert consensus on issues related to radiation protection using independent scientific analysis. She has a Ph.D. in economics from Rutgers University.
Gwen Darien is a cancer survivor who brings a wealth of personal and professional experiences to her position as executive director of the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation. She was the founding director of the American Association for Cancer Research’s (AACR) department of Survivor and Patient Advocacy. Ms. Darien was editor-in-chief of CR magazine and director of the American Association for Cancer Research Survivor and Patient Advocacy Program. She was previously the editor-in-chief of MAMM. Ms. Darien is chair of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Director’s Consumer Liaison Group and is a member of the Board of Directors of Education Network to Advance Cancer Clinical Trials. She has served as member of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Health, Genetics and Society and the faculties of the AACR/American Society of Clinical Oncology Methods in Clinical Cancer Research Workshop, Accelerating Anti-Cancer Agent Development and on the advisory board of the Health Advocacy Program at Sarah Lawrence College.
Kenneth Denison, Ph.D., is responsible for leading all dose-related activities for General Electric (GE) Healthcare’s CT business including lower-dose technologies, dose monitoring and tracking systems, new services and solutions, education and training, and coordination of industry, public, and government relations activities relative to the dose issue. His focus is on helping GE Healthcare customers worldwide lower the radiation doses used in their practices. He holds seven patents, all in the design of MRI systems. He received both his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
Donald P. Frush, M.D., F.A.C.R., F.A.A.P., is professor of radiology and pediatrics, chief of pediatric radiology and vice-chair for safety and quality, Department of Radiology, Duke Medical Center. He is also a councilor for NCRP, and he is on the boards of both the ACR and American Board of Radiology (ABR). He is a fellow in the Society of Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonances, a steering committee member of the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging (Image Gently Campaign), and works with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Smartcard Radiation Tracking Project. Research includes CT image quality, dose assessment, and dose reduction in children.
Katharine Grant, Ph.D., is currently a CT staff scientist for Siemens Medical Solutions USA and serves as a collaboration manager/scientific liaison between luminary customers and Siemens’ physicists. Dr. Grant joined Siemens in 2009 after being awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from the Director of Central/National Intelligence and working as a research associate within the Special Purpose Processor Development Group (SPPDG) at the Mayo Clinic. She received her B.S. in physics from Miami University in 2000 and her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in 2005. Dr. Grant is also an adjunct assistant professor of radiology and physiology at the Mayo Clinic.
Michael S. Lauer, M.D., has served as director of the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Dr. Lauer is a cardiologist and clinical epidemiologist noted for his work on diagnostic testing, clinical manifestations of autonomic nervous system dysfunction, and clinical comparative effectiveness. Dr. Lauer received a B.S. in biology from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an M.D. from Albany Medical College; he also participated in the Program in Clinical Effectiveness at the Harvard School of Public. He received post-graduate training at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital, and the Framingham Heart Study. Prior to joining the National Institute of Health (NIH), Dr. Lauer was a professor of medicine, epidemiology, and biostatistics at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University.
Kiyohiko Mabuchi, M.D., M.P.H., deputy chief, Radiation Epidemiology Branch, head of the Chernobyl Research Unit, and senior scientist, in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the NCI, currently directs epidemiological studies of thyroid disease and leukemia risks following the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident and also is engaged in continuing follow-up studies of cancer in the Japanese atomic-bombing survi-
vors, collaborating with the Radiation Effects Research Foundation. He received an M.D. from Osaka University Medical School and an M.P.H./Dr.P.H. from the John Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. He has been a member of several international radiation committees, including the International Commission of Radiological Protection (ICRP), the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), and the UK National Radiological Protection Board’s Advisory.
Richard Mather, Ph.D., has worked in medical imaging for more than 17 years including formal training at University of California, Los Angeles, in the biomedical physics graduate program. He received his Ph.D. in 1997. At Toshiba, Dr. Mather has been integrally involved in research projects that validate Toshiba’s CT products in the medical community.
Michael McNitt-Gray, Ph.D., is professor of radiological sciences in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is also the director of the biomedical physics graduate program there. He received his Ph.D. in biomedical physics from UCLA in 1993; his MSEE from Carnegie Mellon University in 1980, and his BSEE from Washington University in St. Louis in 1979. He currently serves on the International Commission on Radiation Units (ICRU) Committee on Image Quality and Patient Dose in Computed Tomography, and he chairs both the ACR CT Accreditation Program Physics subcommittee and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine CT Subcommittee. His current research interests include investigations into x-ray computed tomography with specific research into the physics of CT image acquisition including estimating radiation dose and assessing image quality.
Charles W. Miller, Ph.D., joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in January 1992. He is currently chief of the Radiation Studies Branch, Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects, National Center for Environmental Health. In this position, he develops goals and objectives that integrate organization and environmental public health programs on the potential effects of exposure to radiation and radiation-related health research, including providing leadership for the agency’s radiological emergency response and consequence management efforts. Dr. Miller is a member of the NCRP, and he is a fellow of the Health Physics Society. Dr. Miller holds a B.S. in physics/math from Ball State University, a M.S. in meteorology from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in bionucleonics (health physics) from Purdue University.
Donald L. Miller, M.D., is acting chief, Diagnostic Devices Branch, Division of Mammography Quality and Radiation Programs in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health of the FDA. He received a B.A. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University in 1972 and an M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine in 1976. He is a fellow of the Society of Interventional Radiology and the ACR, a consultant to the IAEA, a member of Council of the NCRP, and a member of Committee 3 of the ICRP.
Gail Prochaska has been with IMV since 1987 during which time she has worked with vendors and professional societies to develop and use market data and census databases to capture procedures, consumables, and equipment for multiple diagnostic imaging modalities and radiation therapy. Prior to IMV, Ms. Prochaska held marketing, sales, and management positions at Amersham (now GE). She has a B.S. in biology from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
Madan M. Rehani, Ph.D., has been working at IAEA, Vienna, Austria for the past 10 years and manages radiation protection of patients projects in more than 60 countries. He is responsible for initiating and directing patient radiation exposure tracking project at IAEA. Prior to joining IAEA he was professor and head at the Medical Physics Unit at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. He has chaired three task groups of the ICRP, which led to Annals of ICRP.
Ashok Shah, M.B.A., is the general manager of IMV Ltd. and has more than 30 years’ experience in the health care and scientific products markets. Prior to IMV, Mr. Shah held positions with IMS Health, Fisher Scientific, and Becton Dickinson & Co. He has an M.B.A. from McGill University, Montreal, and a B.S. in microbiology.
Dominic Siewko is the radiation safety officer for Philips Healthcare and has been in this role for two years. He previously worked for GE Healthcare for the past 10 years in a health physicist position supporting radiopharmaceutical manufacturing. He currently manages the radiation/product safety and radiation regulatory program for all nuclear and x-ray imaging modalities globally for Philips and is based out of Andover, Massachusetts. He is active in the Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance, Society of Nuclear Medicine, and Health Physics Society, and is certified by the American Board of Health Physics.
Aaron Sodickson, M.D., is the section head of emergency radiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, medical director of CT for the Brigham Radiology Network, and assistant professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School. His primary research focus is on informatics methods to automatically extract radiation exposure data on a large scale from existing sources in the electronic medical record, and use of the resultant data-bases for quality control and patient safety applications. Related research and clinical quality improvement efforts involve CT technology assessment and imaging optimization to achieve high-quality imaging at low radiation dose.
David C. Spelic, Ph.D., is a physicist with the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. He joined the agency in 1994, and he is involved in public health activities regarding medical x-ray based imaging. He also has primary responsibility for the Nationwide Evaluation of X-ray Trends survey program, a cooperative effort with the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors and state-level radiation control offices to characterize patient radiation doses from selected medical x-ray examinations performed in the United States.
Raymond H. Thornton, M.D., trained as a concert pianist at the Juilliard School before attending medical school at the University of Pittsburgh. He completed residency in diagnostic radiology and fellowship training in vascular interventional radiology at the University of California at San Francisco. At Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, he serves as vice-chair of Radiology for Quality, Safety and Performance Improvement and Training Program Director for the Interventional Radiology fellowship, in addition to maintaining a busy clinical practice in interventional radiology.
