Duke University Medical Physics Graduate Program

Duke University Medical Physics Graduate Program The official Facebook resource for the Duke Medical Physics Graduate Program.

The Duke University Medical Physics Graduate Program is a CAMPEP accredited, interdisciplinary program sponsored by five departments: Radiology, Radiation Oncology, Physics, Biomedical Engineering, and Medical Health Physics. Degrees Offered
- MS
- PhD

Academic Tracks
- Diagnostic Imaging
- Radiation Therapy
- Nuclear Medicine
- Health Physics

We offer a number of opportunities for research training, including an NIH training grant for PhD students and a thesis option for MS students. We also offer an optional summer clinical internship for MS students interested in additional clinical training.

Please join us in celebrating Yakun Zhang, PhD (Advisor: Ehsan Samei, PhD), who successfully defended her PhD dissertati...
03/27/2026

Please join us in celebrating Yakun Zhang, PhD (Advisor: Ehsan Samei, PhD), who successfully defended her PhD dissertation on March 27, 2026. Her dissertation, “Systemic Integration of Retrospective Analysis for Optimizing CT Imaging Practice,” focused on improving CT quality monitoring through quantitative image quality metrics that better reflect clinical performance. Specifically, she investigates organ-specific image noise and task-based detectability in large clinical CT datasets, examining how these measures vary with patient size, imaging technique, and reconstruction settings to identify clinically meaningful image quality differences across scanners and institutions.

Warm congratulations to Runhe Tan, MS (Advisor: Kyle Lafata, PhD) on successfully defending his Master’s thesis on March...
03/27/2026

Warm congratulations to Runhe Tan, MS (Advisor: Kyle Lafata, PhD) on successfully defending his Master’s thesis on March 27, 2026. His thesis, “Investigating Intra-tumoral Heterogenity Driven by Nutrient Dynamics and Radiotherapy Using an In-silico Avascular Tumor Growth Model,” focused on developing computational tumor growth models to study how nutrient dynamics and radiation response shape intra-tumoral heterogeneity, and on translating those patterns into image-based features for radiomics analysis.

We are pleased to announce that Xin Wu, PhD (mentored by Jackie Wu, PhD and Qiuwen Wu, PhD), has successfully defended t...
03/27/2026

We are pleased to announce that Xin Wu, PhD (mentored by Jackie Wu, PhD and Qiuwen Wu, PhD), has successfully defended their dissertation, " From Dose Engine to Machine Learning in Radiation Therapy: Frameworks, Insights, and Clinical Applications," on March 27, 2026. Xin Wu’s research focuses on radiotherapy treatment plan optimization, spanning from fast dose calculation to IMRT and VMAT optimization algorithm development. His work integrates physics-based dose model with machine learning methodologies to improve the efficiency, robustness, and interpretability of treatment planning. We celebrate his accomplishment and wish him the best in his future endeavors!

On March 27, 2026, Em Harkness, MS (Advisors: Ehsan Samei, PhD and Francesco Ria, PhD) successfully defended their maste...
03/27/2026

On March 27, 2026, Em Harkness, MS (Advisors: Ehsan Samei, PhD and Francesco Ria, PhD) successfully defended their master’s thesis titled “A Framework for Uncertainty Propagation in Risk-to-Risk Assessment of Clinical and Radiation Risks in CT Across Patient Demographics.” Congratulations to Em on this achievement!

On March 26, 2026, Caleb Smith, MS (Advisor: Justus Adamson, PhD) successfully defended his master’s thesis titled “Quan...
03/27/2026

On March 26, 2026, Caleb Smith, MS (Advisor: Justus Adamson, PhD) successfully defended his master’s thesis titled “Quantifying the Potential Benefit of Applying Remote Magnetic Navigation Systems to Abdominal SBRT.” Caleb Smith’s research focused on using magnetic systems to spare dose to OARs during abdominal SBRT. Congratulations on this important milestone!

On March 26, 2026, Pear Sukarom, MS (Advisors: Dean Darnell, PhD and Trong-Kha Truong, PhD) defended her master’s thesis...
03/26/2026

On March 26, 2026, Pear Sukarom, MS (Advisors: Dean Darnell, PhD and Trong-Kha Truong, PhD) defended her master’s thesis “Integrated Radiofrequency/Wireless (iRFW) Coil Array for Simultaneous Acquisition and Wireless 7T Magnetic Resonance Data Transfer.” We extend our congratulations on this accomplishment!

Madison Allen, MS (Advisor: Timothy Turkington, PhD) successfully defended her master’s thesis on March 25, 2026. Her th...
03/25/2026

Madison Allen, MS (Advisor: Timothy Turkington, PhD) successfully defended her master’s thesis on March 25, 2026. Her thesis, “Detrimental Effects of Recent Radionuclide Therapy and SPECT Radionuclide Activities on Subsequent PET Imaging due to Detector Pulse Pile-Up and Deadtime,” marks the completion of her MS requirements. Madison Allen’s research focused on the impacts of Tc-99m, Lu-177, and I-131 on subsequent PET imaging, through evaluating spatial resolution degradation, dead time correction, and sphere quantitation. Congratulations!

On March 25, 2026, Gwynne Aull, MS (Advisor: Timothy Turkington, PhD) successfully defended her MS thesis, “PET Image Qu...
03/25/2026

On March 25, 2026, Gwynne Aull, MS (Advisor: Timothy Turkington, PhD) successfully defended her MS thesis, “PET Image Quality in the Vicinity of the Bladder.” Gwynne Aull’ research focused on PET image quality in the vicinity of the bladder, on three different PET/CT systems, with varying Time of Flight resolutions. We congratulate her on this achievement!

We celebrate Gianna Hatheway, MS (Advisors: Yang Sheng, PhD and Julie Raffi, PhD), who successfully defended her doctora...
03/24/2026

We celebrate Gianna Hatheway, MS (Advisors: Yang Sheng, PhD and Julie Raffi, PhD), who successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on March 24, 2026. Her dissertation is titled “Development of a Reinforcement Learning Framework for Interstitial Needle Placement and Adaptation of a Training Phantom for HDR GYN Brachytherapy.” Gianna Hatheway’s research focused on the Development of a Reinforcement Learning Framework for Interstitial Needle Placement and Adaptation of a Training Platform for HDR GYN Brachytherapy. Well done!

Congratulations to Njood Alsaihati, PhD (Advisor: Ehsan Samei, PhD) on the successful defense of her PhD dissertation on...
03/24/2026

Congratulations to Njood Alsaihati, PhD (Advisor: Ehsan Samei, PhD) on the successful defense of her PhD dissertation on March 24, 2026, titled “The Influence of Categorization, Metrology, and Analysis Methods on the Quality and Variability Characterization of Clinical Imaging.” Njood Alsaihati’s research focused on improving the consistency and quality of CT imaging by examining how radiation dose management, patient size assessment, and data standardization shape clinical imaging practice. Excellent work, Dr. Alsaihati!

On March 24, 2026, Zhuoyun Huang, MS (Advisor: Chunhao Wang, PhD) successfully defended her thesis titled “Unified Machi...
03/24/2026

On March 24, 2026, Zhuoyun Huang, MS (Advisor: Chunhao Wang, PhD) successfully defended her thesis titled “Unified Machine Learning Model for Predicting Normal Brain Toxicity in Single-Isocenter-Multi-Target Stereotactic Radiosurgery.” Her work focused on developing machine learning–based methods to predict normal brain dose in single-isocenter multi-target stereotactic radiosurgery, with particular emphasis on the use of gradient boosted regression tree models to estimate clinically relevant dose metrics based on geometric characteristics of multiple brain metastases.

Please join us in congratulating Cindy McCabe, PhD (Advisor: Ehsan Samei, PhD) on the successful defense of her doctoral...
03/23/2026

Please join us in congratulating Cindy McCabe, PhD (Advisor: Ehsan Samei, PhD) on the successful defense of her doctoral dissertation on March 23, 2026, titled “The Interplay of Patient and Imaging Variabilities on Quantitative Imaging Outcomes Through Virtual Imaging Trials.” This accomplishment reflects his hard work and dedication—well done, Dr. McCabe!

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2424 Erwin Road, Ste 101
Durham, NC
27705

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(919) 684-1400

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