Education and Research
Education
In the first two years of their training, students are expected to complete the seven core courses required by CAMPEP, as well as other elective courses, including MRI imaging, statistics, etc., to meet the required credit hours and expand their knowledgebase for subsequent research activities. Students will also take clinical rotation courses and have the opportunity to observe clinical radiation oncology physics to prepare for a future career in clinical medical physics. A typical degree plan can be found here.
Research
Approximately half of the physics and engineering faculty are focused primarily on research and are heavily funded by the National Institutes of Health, American Cancer Society, Radiological Society of North America, Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas, and various corporations. Our extramural physics research funding is about $15 million.
Current major research projects include:
- Artificial intelligence and deep learning in medicine
- GPU and cloud-based automatic treatment planning
- Medical physics for preclinical radiation research
- Adaptive re-planning
- Normal tissue toxicity
- GPU-based Monte Carlo simulation packages
- Low-dose and 4D CBCT reconstruction
Students will go through lab rotations and declare a lab at the end of the first year. They will actively participate in lab research during the rest of the graduate training period. Students are encouraged to submit fellowship grant applications.