Curietherapies 10th annual meeting: Moving Brachytherapy Forward

J Joanne Alfieri is an associate professor in the Department of Oncology, McGill University since February 2012. She is a radiation oncologist who specializes in the treatment of gynaecological and gastrointestinal malignancies at the McGill University Health Centre. Dr. Alfieri earned her medical degree and her post-graduate radiation oncology training at McGill. She completed a Post-graduate Fellowship in Gynaecology Oncology and MRI-guided Brachytherapy at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia.  Dr. Alfieri is the lead for the gynecological site group as well as the brachytherapy lead for the MUHC. She initiated the MRI-guided brachytherapy program at McGill, and her current research interests lie in the evaluation of this program with the aim of improving the long-term outcomes and minimizing treatment-related toxicity in gynaecological cancer patients as well as in investigating alternate treatment options for locally advanced cervix cancer.  She has a keen interest in medical education and is the post-graduate residency training Program Director for radiation oncology since February 2015 as well as Associate Chair (Education) for the Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology of McGill University where oversees undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate training programs in medical, surgical and radiation oncology. Merci!      

Dr. Bahoric completed his medical school in Rijeka, Croatia. He completed his Royal College Fellowship Program in Radiation oncology in Toronto. He works as staff radiation oncologist at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. He is assistant professor at McGill University. Apart from teaching he is involved in various administrative activities. His areas of interest and expertise are the gynecological, genitourinary and hematological malignancies. Particularly, he is interested in brachytherapy. He offers both intracavitary and interstitial for gynecological malignancies. He performs adjuvant accelerated partial breast irradiation via interstitial brachytherapy. Dr. Bahoric participates in nationwide studies in prostate cancer. As part of the studies he offers and performs HDR prostate brachytherapy. He is past president of Canadian Brachytherapy Group and is still active participant in this group.

Dr. Beaulieu is a full professor, Director of the CAMPEP graduate program and also Director of the Cancer Research Centre at Université Laval. He served on the Board of the Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists as President Elect, President and Past President (2010-2016). He is a member of the AAPM Brachytherapy Subcommittee as well as two associated Working Groups (Robotics and Clinical Applications), is the Chair of TG317 on tracking technology for brachytherapy, a member of the ESTRO In Vivo dosimetry working group, was the Chair of TG-186 and until recently led the AAPM/ESTRO/ABG Working Group on Model-Based Dose Calculations in Brachytherapy. He has mentored over 150 highly qualified personals, published 220 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 465 refereed abstracts at national and international meetings. He is a recognized expert on topics related to scintillation dosimetry and brachytherapy. Luc

Prof. Cyrus CHARGARI (MD, PhD) is full professor of radiation oncology. He is head of brachytherapy unit in Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus and author/co-author of more than 370 publications on cancer treatment.His clinical activity is mainly dedicated to gynecological cancers and brachytherapy, including pediatrics brachytherapy and head and neck procedures. He is involved in translational research through the development of early phase clinical trials in the field of immune modulation and novel radiosensitizers.

Dr. Mark Corkum is a radiation oncologist at The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, an Assistant Professor in the Division of Radiation Oncology at the University of Ottawa and a Clinician Investigator at the Ottawa Health Research Institute. After completing medical school at Dalhousie University and his Radiation Oncology residency at Western University, he completed a fellowship in Prostate Brachytherapy at the Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre and the University of Toronto. As part of his fellowship, he completed the Royal College accredited Area of Focused Competence diploma in Brachytherapy. He also has a MSc in Community Health and Epidemiology from Dalhousie University. His clinical practice focuses on genitourinary malignancies including prostate cancer, bladder cancer and kidney cancers. His research interests include prostate brachytherapy, stereotactic radiotherapy and oligometastatic cancers. He is involved in designing clinical trials, use of population-based data sets to understand trends in cancer management, and systematic reviews. 

Stefanie Corradini is an assistant professor and senior consultant at the Department of Radiation Oncology, LMU University of Munich (Germany) since June 2014. She specializes in the treatment of breast and gynaecological malignancies and is chief of the brachytherapy and the MRI-guided radiotherapy program at LMU University. Dr. Corradini earned her medical degree at Paracelsus Medical Universtiy in Salzburg (Austria) and her post-graduate radiation oncology training at LMU University. She initiated the gynaecological MRI-guided brachytherapy program and the liver brachytherapy program at LMU university in cooperation with the Department of Interventional Radiology. She has a special research interest in liver brachytherapy and the evaluation and development of MR-guided implant procedures and the application of conformal interstitial brachytherapy on unusual treatment sites, taking advantage of her close partnership with Interventional Radiology.

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Dr Derashodian is a radiation oncologist working at Centre Intégré de Cancérologie de la Montérégie, at Charles LeMoyne hospital. She graduated from Université de Montreal’s medical school in 2005. She then completed her residency in radiation oncology at Université Laval. She pursued her academic training at University of Miami with a fellowship in Urologic cancers under the supervision of Dr Alan Pollack. Her main areas of expertise include urologic, gynecologic, and head and neck tumors, as well as general brachytherapy.

Dr. Christopher Deufel is the chair of research for the Division of Medical Physics and practice leader for Brachytherapy in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota.  Dr. Deufel received his Ph.D. in experimental physics from Cornell University and completed residency training in therapeutic medical physics at the Mayo Clinic.  He is currently the secretary for the American Brachytherapy Society and has served the ABS board of directors for the past three years.  At the Mayo Clinic, he supervises physics resident education in brachytherapy and conducts research in brachytherapy applicator design, clinical brachytherapy techniques, and radiation treatment planning methods. His work has been published Nature Methods, Radiotherapy and Oncology, the International Journal of Radiotherapy and Oncology Biology Physics, Physics in Medicine and Biology, the Brachytherapy Journal, and the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics.   

Phillip M. Devlin, MD, FACR, FASTRO, FFRRCSI(Hon) is Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Division of Brachytherapy in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center. Dr. Devlin earned his medical degree at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1991 and completed his residency in Radiation Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1995, followed by a specialized fellowship in brachytherapy at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 1996.   In addition to lecturing extensively both nationally and internationally, Dr. Devlin has more than 100 published manuscripts and book chapters, and is editor of the text, Brachytherapy: Applications and Techniques, now in its second edition. He is a past President of the Massachusetts Radiological Society and was previously a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). In 2008, he was named a Fellow of the American College of Radiology (FACR), and in 2013 he became both a Fellow of ASTRO (FASTRO) and a Faculty of Radiology Honorary Fellow in the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland (FFRRCSI[Hon]) and a Fellow of the American Brachytherapy Society. Dr. Devlin led two funded studies as part of the ACR’s Quality Research in Radiation Oncology (QRRO) project. His current research focus is on radioreponsiveness and gene expression in cutaneous lymphoma treated with brachytherapy. He continues to lead internationally in developing and deploying innovative brachytherapy techniques to expand the scope of practice, teaching and research.  

Shirin A. Enger is a tenured associate professor at Gerald Bronfman Department of Oncology, McGill University, and Canada research chair in medical physics. Her main research interest is brachytherapy with an overall aim to enable patient-specific brachytherapy dose planning and delivery. She leads a research group with focus on novel brachytherapy technology. Dr. Enger completed her PhD at Uppsala University, Sweden in 2008, and her postdoctoral fellowship at Université Laval, Quebec, Canada during 2009 to 2011. During 2012 to 2014 she held a position as assistant professor in Medical Physics at Uppsala University prior moving to Montreal and her current position at McGill University.

Jacob G. Johansen is an associate professor at The Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University. His field of expertise is time-resolved dosimetry. Since 2016 he has been working with in vivo dosimetry for brachytherapy and is coordinating a mutli-centre study on time-resolved dosimetry during brachytherapy. A study that currently involves all Danish brachytherapy clinics. Dr. Johansen is also a member of the GEC-ESTRO working groups Braphyqs and Brachy-HERO. Furthermore, he is part of the PRISM-eBT project. A project dedicated to establishing primary standards and traceable measurements for electronic brachytherapy.

Jean-Michel Hannoun-Levi MD, PhD, MS is professor in radiation oncology and head of the radiation therapy department at the Antoine Lacassagne Cancer Center, University of Cote d’Azur, France. His clinical activity is mainly dedicated to breast, prostate, and gynaecologic cancers. He developed local, national and international prospective and retrospective clinical projects. Research and development of brachytherapy represents a key point of his activity. He is the co-director of a research federation (Claude Lalanne Federation) labelled by the University of Cote d’Azur, dedicated to the new irradiation approaches (photons, protons, high-dose/small volume). He is the first inventor of a new gynaecologic applicator (Nice Gynecologic Applicator) for cervical cancers which obtained an international patent in 2010. He is the author or co-author of more than 180 clinical or research indexed articles. He is the director of a French brachytherapy teaching course based on a simulation approach linked with the simulation laboratory of the Faculty of Medicine of Nice. This program started in 2011 and was continued with an increasing number of new students. In 2010, he founded and drove the brachytherapy group of the French Society of Oncologic Radiation Therapy (GC-SFRO). He is vice-president of the French society of oncologic radiation therapy (SFRO), and Chairman of the Breast working group of the Groupe Européen de Curiethérapie (GEC-ESTRO).

Peter Hoskin trained in clinical oncology at the Royal Marsden Hospital London and has been consultant in clinical oncology at Mount Vernon Cancer Centre, Northwood UK since 1992. He is also Professor in Clinical Oncology at University College London. Research interests focus on radiotherapy quality assurance, palliative radiotherapy, and brachytherapy. He chairs the GEC ESTRO urological brachytherapy group UROGEC and is a member of the GEC ESTRO committee and ESTRO Board as well as Clinical Editor for Radiotherapy and Oncology.

Dr. I-Chow "Joe" Hsu is an internationally recognized radiation oncologist with special expertises in brachytherapy and hyperthermia. Dr. Hsu’s research investigates the application of Hight Dose Rate (HDR) brachytherapy, a highly precise and conformal treatment that delivers radiotherapy by temporarily placing a minute radioactive source in the tumor using minimal invasive, image guided procedures.  His research in hyperthermia, a moderate temperature elevation (40-45° C) of the targeted tumor, explores the synergy between thermal therapy and radiotherapy to improve treatment efficacy without increasing treatment related toxicity.  His research in the treatment of genitourinary and gynecologic malignancies have lead to improved clinical outcomes and effective novel treatments for challenging clinical conditions. Dr. Hsu earned a medical degree at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He is an active member of American Society for Radiation Oncology, American Brachytherapy Society and Society for Thermal Medicine.  He has been recognized as a Fellow of American College of Radiology and as a Fellow of American Society for Radiation Oncology.

Dr. Fleur Huang is a radiation oncologist at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, and Associate Professor in the Department of Oncology at the University of Alberta, where she is a member of the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute. She maintains a busy clinical practice, with focus on women's cancers and palliative radiotherapy. Dr. Huang holds a medical degree from McGill University, where she also completed residency in Radiation Oncology. This was followed by Breast and Gynecologic subspecialty training at the Princess Margaret Hospital, University of Toronto. While growing her clinical practice, and deepening professional interests in Global Health and Health Systems, she earned an MPH at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Huang has advanced her perspectives through study in places as diverse as the International Space University / Pôle Universitaire Européen de Strasbourg and Singapore Management University, more recently she was among the inaugural cohort of the NCI’s Multilevel Intervention Training Institute. In 2015, Dr. Huang led a team selected to take part in NCI-ASCO’s Teams in Cancer Care Delivery initiative (healthcaredelivery.cancer.gov/healthcare/nci-asco.html). She is a core member of CancerCare Alberta’s Brachytherapy Centre of Excellence working group. With broad-ranging activities in research and teaching, some of Dr. Huang’s latest multidisciplinary efforts have explored machine learning for predictive modeling of MRI uterine deformation from brachytherapy tandem placement, and first-in-kind prototyping of a virtual reality simulator for cervical brachytherapy intracavitary/interstitial applicator insertion. She has been participating in the EMBRACE Collaborative Group (www.embracestudy.dk) since her first study enrolment in 2011, and still leads the team that was among the top-10 accruers to EMBRACE-I.

Dr. Jolicoeur had her medical degree along with a Ph.D in Molecular biology and completed her radiation oncology residency at University of Montreal in 1996. she completed a brachytherapy fellowship at the Centre Georges-François Leclerc located in Dijon France. In 1997 she started working at the department of Radiation Oncology of University of Montréal, where she still holds a position as a professor. In 1999 she was appointed to the planning and construction of the new department of Radiation Oncology of Hospital Charles LeMoyne. The facility, which started his activities in 2011, has a comprehensive image guided brachytherapy program. In 2011 she founded “Curietherapies”. As a brachytherapy specialist, she has special research interests in the application of brachytherapy in area such as breast, genitourinary and gynecologic cancers. Her main focus is in the development of image guided implant procedures, the use of MRI in brachytherapy and the precision delivery of conformal high dose rate brachytherapy.

Dr. Marisa Kollmeier is an Associate Physician in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York where she joined the faculty in 2004 following her residency training at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Since 2007, she has been an active member of the Brachytherapy Service at MSKCC and performs prostate LDR and HDR brachytherapy, intracavitary and interstitial GYN brachytherapy, as well as HDR mold and HDR intraoperative radiation therapy.  She is actively involved in the training of many residents and fellows in brachytherapy-based therapies. Dr. Kollmeier is the chair of the Radiation Oncology Quality Assurance Committee and participates actively in both institutional QA activities as well serving on the Multidisciplinary QA Committee for ASTRO. She has been an active member of ABS since 2004. She has many publications in journals including Brachytherapy, the International Journal of Radiotherapy and Oncology Biology Physics, Practical Radiation Oncology and Radiotherapy and Oncology on prostate cancer, brachytherapy as well as other topics.  

Renée travaille comme physicienne médicale au CHUM depuis 2006. Ses principaux intérêts sont l'application de stratégies de gestion des risques à la radio-oncologie, la curiethérapie prostatique à faible débit (LDR) et à haut débit (HDR) et l'enseignement de la physique aux résidents en radio-oncologie. Renée fait partie de l'équipe de curiethérapie prostatique du CHUM depuis plus de dix ans. Elle était responsable de la mise en service du système UroNav avec reconstruction de cathéter électromagnétique pour une utilisation clinique pour la curiethérapie de la prostate HDR. Renée est également Chargée d’enseignement clinique à l’Université de Montréal et a été responsable du volet formation en physique du programme de résidence en radio-oncologie. En 2019, une révision complète du programme de physique et de la nouvelle structure des cours de physique pour mettre en œuvre la compétence par conception a été mise en œuvre. Renée a également fait du bénévolat au Collège canadien des physiciens en médecine (CCPM) pendant de nombreuses années, culminant avec le rôle d'examinateur en chef du CCPM de 2015 à 2018.

Eric Leung is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto and a Clinician-Investigator in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre. He is originally from Saint John New Brunswick and graduated from medical school at the Memorial University of Newfoundland.  He completed his residency and fellowship training at U of T and specializes in interstitial and MR-guided brachytherapy.  Dr. Leung has an interest in cervical cancer clinical trials and is a member of the Cervix Core Committee at NRG Oncology and the Cervix Executive Committee at CCTG. His other academic interests include translational studies in cervix cancer including metabolic imaging for patients with locally advanced gynecological tumours. 

Fellowship en curiethérapie; Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA MSc médecine expérimentale; Faculté de médecine, University Laval, Québec, Québec “Diplôme d’étude supérieurs en radio-oncologie”; University Laval, Québec, Québec Doctorat en médecine; Faculté de médecine, Université Laval, Québec, Québec Bachelier en Pharmacie; École de pharmacie, Université Laval, Québec, Québec

Alvaro A. Martinez, M.D. received his medical degree from Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia. He completed a radiation oncology residency program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Following his residency, he became an Assistant Professor at Stanford University Medical School in Palo Alto, California. In 1981, he joined the department of Oncology at Mayo Clinic Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota where he achieved the position of Associate Professor. He was appointed Chairman of the department of Radiation Oncology at Beaumont Hospital Royal Oak, Michigan in 1985 where he was a Professor of Radiation Oncology at Oakland University William Beaumont Medical school. For the past five years, he has been a Senior VP of Scientific and Clinical Strategy at 21st Century Oncology of Michigan, a division of Michigan Health care professionals. Taking advantage of his surgical training, Dr. Martinez achieved outstanding expertise in brachytherapy and he designed special applicators which are widely used for the treatment of patients with gynecological and other pelvic malignancies. He is a member of numerous national and international professional organizations and is highly regarded by his peers for his professional accomplishments. He was president of the Michigan Society of Therapeutic Radiology in 1989 and president of the American Brachytherapy Society in 1991. Dr. Martinez is certified in radiation oncology by the American Board of Radiology and was awarded a fellowship in the American College of Radiology. Dr. Martinez has been a member of several National Cancer Institute review committees. He has been an associate editor for many national and international medical journals, and has contributed to more than 340 articles in prestigious scientific medical journals. In additional, he has written and contributed to more than 45 chapters in textbooks.

Dr Ménard is a radiation-Oncologist at The CHUM. She is also a professor at Université de Montréal. After her medical degree at University ofCalgary, she made a residency at University of Manitoba. She had her Fellowship at the National Cancer Institute of Bethesda. From 2004 to 2015 she was a professor at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre

Dr. Barbara-Ann Millar is a radiation oncologist and the CNS site lead for the Radiation Medicine Program at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto. Medical education and faculty development has been an ongoing passion throughout her career. She was the previous Program Director for residency training at University of Toronto and is currently the Chair of the Specialty Committee for radiation oncology at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. She has been involved in educational development for radiation oncology nationally with the implementation of ‘Competency by Design’ across Canada and internationally, looking to develop core curriculum and standardized expectations of training for radiation oncology in China and Africa in conjunction with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). She is grateful for opportunities to align her knowledge and enthusiasm for the specialty of radiation oncology with her education skills and knowledge to assist in helping to shape and develop trainees and peers to be responsive and skilled to meet the needs of patients.

Dr. Milosevic is a radiation oncologist and clinician scientist and at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, and Professor and Vice-Chair (Research) in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto. He is a past-President of the Canadian Association of Radiation Oncology (CARO) and founding Chair of the Canadian Partnership for Quality in Radiotherapy (CPQR). His clinical practice is in the management of gynecologic cancers. His research is focused on improving radiotherapy effectiveness and patient outcomes using advanced image-guided radiation techniques, and new radiation-drug combinations that target tumor hypoxia and the radiation-induced immune response. He has led numerous collaborative projects, including clinical trials of new treatment approaches, and published over 230 peer-reviewed papers

Dr. Gerard Morton is a radiation oncologist at the Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre and an associate professor at the University of Toronto.  He has a clinical and academic focus in prostate cancer and brachytherapy, is program director of the University of Toronto Brachytherapy AFC training program, and is chair of the Royal College Brachytherapy AFC committee.  He co-chairs several ongoing multicentre clinical trials, is co-chair of the ASTRO Annual Meeting GU Track, and is North American Editor for Clinical Oncology.  He has published extensively on prostate cancer.   ...

I’m an anesthesiologist. I work at Hôpital Charles-Le Moyne. I did my residency in Sherbrooke, Quebec. I’ve been an attending since 2020 and 100% of my professional practice have been during a worldwide pandemic. I’ve been implicated in curietherapies since 2020.

Bradley R. Pieters, MD, PhD, is Head of the Brachytherapy department and Principal Investigator at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers, location AMC, The Netherlands. Dr. Pieters is the chair of the GEC-ESTRO and the Course Director of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ESTRO) School for the Comprehensive and Practical Brachytherapy course. Dr. Pieters was trained in Radiation Oncology at the Radboud University Hospital in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and received his medical degree in 1990. He completed his residency in radiotherapy at Academic Hospital Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Dr. Pieters then completed a brachytherapy fellowship at the Daniel den Hoed clinic in Rotterdam and L'Institut Gustave-Roussy in Villejuif, France. His brachytherapy training was completed at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam. Dr. Pieters received his MSc in epidemiology in 2006 and his PhD in 2010 after defending his thesis “Pulsed-dose rate brachytherapy in prostate cancer.” Dr. Pieters’ main field of interest is general brachytherapy with an emphasis on urologic brachytherapy, gynecologic brachytherapy, and translational research for advanced and automatic treatment planning in the field of brachytherapy.  Dr. Pieters is currently one of the Principal Investigators of the PROBACH trial (Randomized Phase 3 Study on the Assessment of Late Toxicity by Comparing IMRT High Dose External Beam Radiotherapy Only With External Beam Radiotherapy Combined With HDR or PDR Brachytherapy in Patients With Intermediate/High Risk Prostate Cancer) and the POWER trial (Randomized trial for the evaluation of erectile dysfunction after whole or partial gland prostate brachytherapy). He is also working on the following research projects: quantification of treatment-induced growth disruption using 3D photography in children with (orbital) rhabdomyosarcoma; ICT-based innovations in the battle against cancer – next-generation patient-tailored brachytherapy cancer treatment planning; Fast, accurate, and insightful brachytherapy treatment planning for cervical cancer through artificial intelligence; The impact of bowel motility on the radiotherapy dose to the bowels.

His main research activity is focused on radiotherapy of breast carcinoma. He was one of the pioneers implementing the new treatment paradigm of accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) in the management of early-stage breast cancer. He was the main investigator of the first prospective randomized clinical trial comparing the efficacy and side-effects of APBI to conventional whole breast irradiation. According to his scientific work in the field of breast cancer radiotherapy and brachytherapy he became an internationally recognized expert. Recently, he is one of the chairmen of the ongoing multicentric prospective randomized GEC-ESTRO APBI trial. In addition he is involved in clinical trials in the field of head & neck radiotherapy, and radiochemotherapy, GYN tumours, and prostate carcinoma as well.

Dr. Portelance is a Professor, Vice-chair and Clinic Division Chief of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center Radiation Oncology Department, Miller School of Medicine. She has more than 20 years of experience in the management of women with gynecological cancer. In recognition of her contribution to the field, she received the prestigious Fellow of the American Society of Radiation Oncology (FASTRO) award in 2018. She serves as a board member of many national committees including the NRG cervix committee and the American Radium Society Gynecology Appropriate Use Criteria committee. She was co-principal investigator of RTOG 0418, a national collaborative group clinical trial which has established the role of pelvic intensity modulated radiation therapy in the management of women with gynecological cancer. Her main research interest is to continue to develop treatment techniques to improve tumor control and reduce radiation toxicity using online adaptive magnetic resonance image guided radiation therapy (MR-g RT) combined with MR-g brachytherapy.

Dre. Marie-Lynn Racine has completed her residency in Radiation Oncology at the Université de Montréal. She has completed a first Fellowship in Brachytherapy at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital affiliated with the Harvard Medical School in Boston and a second Fellowship at the Centre Alexis-Vautrin in Nancy. She is currently working at the Hôpital Charles Lemoyne on the south shore of Montréal.

Mark J. Rivard, Ph.D., DABMP, DABR, FAAPM, FABS, FASTRO is Professor of Radiation Oncology atBrownUniversityand director of the brachytherapy physics service atRhode IslandHospital. He has served as Secretary and Member-at-large for the ABS Board of Directors as well as serving on boards, chairing, or being a member of numerous committees in the ABS, AAPM, ASTRO, NCRP, and other professional societies. Dr. Rivard serves as editor or is on the editorial board of several radiation physics journals and has authored 140 scientific publications, 35 book chapters, and 3 books on brachytherapy. These papers and his extramurally-funded research include investigations on brachytherapy dose measurements and modeling, radiation shielding and safety, and global standardization of dosimetry and clinical implementation. Also being on the adjunct faculty of several universities in New England, Dr. Rivard mentors students on the basics of radiation physics up to translational topics covering clinical integration of new radiotherapy technologies. His greatest innovations have been developing novel brachytherapy sources and advanced treatment planning techniques.

Teo Stanescu PD, MCCPM is a Medical Physicist in the Radiation Medicine Program at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto. Dr. Stanescu graduated from University of Bucharest (Romania) with a B.Sc. in Nuclear Physics. He then obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Medical Physics from the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada). Following graduate school, Dr. Stanescu completed his clinical residency training in Medical Physics at the Cross Cancer Institute (Edmonton, Canada) and received his Board certification in Radiation Therapy from the Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine. Dr. Stanescu’s primary area of research is in the field of MRI-guided adaptive radiation therapy with a focus on the design, development and integration of novel imaging and radiotherapy equipment.

Rowan Thomson is a professor and Canada Research Chair in the Department of Physics at Carleton University. Dr. Thomson’s research involves the development and application of computational techniques to study the interactions of radiation with matter. She is a leader in the development and application of advanced Monte Carlo dose calculation algorithms for brachytherapy, most recently developing and releasing egs_brachy as open-source code. In complement, she is very active in developing multi-scale simulation techniques, from patients to cells to subcellular length scales, and applying these to investigate novel treatment approaches and understand measurements of cellular radiation response.  Dr. Thomson has been recognized through awards including Polanyi Prize for Physics (2011), Canada Research Chair (2013), Ontario Early Researcher Award (2015), Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM; 2020), Sylvia Fedoruk Prize (2020) and Moses & Sylvia Sorkin Greenfield Award (2020). She has been a member of the AAPM’s Therapy Physics Committee and of the Board of Associate Editors for Medical Physics. She was co-chair of AAPM TG-221 Ocular Brachytherapy and a member of other task and working groups including AAPM TG-129, joint AAPM/ESTRO/ABG TG-186 and its successor the Working Group on Model-Based Dose Calculation Algorithms in Brachytherapy.  Outside of research, Prof. Thomson has great enthusiasm for teaching and mentoring future generations of physicists, and taking action to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion in Science.

After obtaining an MSc in physics at Université Laval in 2009, Dany worked in Quebec’s health system before obtaining his MSc in Medical Physics in 2015 at Université de Montréal.  Since then, he’s working at Hopital Charles-LeMoyne in the Radio-Oncology department.  His fields of expertise are Brachytherapy, TomoTherapy, and Machine QA.

Dr Yamada is a Senior Attending Radiation Oncologist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.  He is co lead of the Spine Oncology Service at MSKCC.  He completed residency training in Radiation Oncology at the Princess Margaret Hospital at the University of Toronto, and a fellowship in brachytherapy at MSKCC.  He has previously served as an officer in the American Brachytherapy Society.  He was the scientific committee chair of the World Brachytherapy Congress in 2008.  He has published widely on brachytherapy in the peer reviewed literature as well as textbook chapters, focusing primarily on prostate and spine brachytherapy.  He has served as invited faculty both nationally and internationally on brachytherapy related topics.