News About Our Group

• Professor Xu and Professor Caracappa received the Team Research Award at the 2012 Spring School of Engineering Faculty Awards Dinner. Congratulations! May 16, 2012.
• Professor Xu is elected Vice Chair and Justin Vazquez, graduate student, is elected a member of Executive Committee of Radiation Protection & Shielding Division, American Nuclear Society. Congratulations! May 12, 2012.
• Our group has published a new study on obese patients who undergo CT imaging examinations, and the paper, with Aiping Ding being the first author, has received coverage by more than 100 international media outlets (Wall Street Journal, Yahoo News, U.S.News, MedicalPhysicsWeb, Institute of Physics, RPI News, etc.). Congratulations to Aiping! April 20, 2012.
• Graduate student Mr. Yiming Gao was awarded the Health Physics Society's 2012-2013 J. Newell Stannard Fellowship. Congratulations! April 20, 2012.
• Research by our group is featured by RPI News: read the article. April 5, 2012.
• Times Union reports our research on virtual-reality simulation in 3D environment: read the article. March 8, 2012.
• Dr. Peter Caracappa, radiation safety officer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, will visit Capitol Hill to brief congressional staffers on radiation and radioactivity. More here. January 25, 2012.
• Dr. Xu is appointed to lead the nuclear engineering program at RPI. More info January 3, 2012.
• Wall Street Journal reporter speaks about our research on "virtual patients" for radiation simulation at Rensselaer. Click here to check out the video and a fabulous story. December 22, 2011.
• Research by our group is featured by Wall Street Journal: read the article. December 20, 2011.
• The Phantom Patient: RPI's Approach Magazine reports our research on computational phantoms. More info December 20, 2011.
• Students have made important breakthrough in using motion capture to create animated phantoms for virtual-reality simulation in 3D environment. Watch the movie here. December 2011.
• Professor Xu has been elected to serve as a member of the International Advisory Board for Physics in Medicine and Biology - a leading journal on application of theoretical and applied physics to imaging, therapy, physiology and biology. December 2011.
• Dr. Peter Caracappa has been recognized with a Presidential Citation by the American Nuclear Society for his contributions to the media response to the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan. Dr. Caracappa participated in interviews with numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, AP, Reuters, Scientific American, PBS Newshour, and National Public Radio. [He has also been appointed to the ANS Special Committee on the Fukushima Accident sub-committee for radiation and health effects.] October 2011.
• Mr. Yiming Gao, who received a B.S. from Tsinghua University and an MS from Fudan University, both in China, joins our group as a PhD student. September 2011.
• Mr. Matt Mille has passed his PhD candidacy examination. Congratulations! August 2011.
• Prof Xu organized "The 3rd International Workshop on Computational Phantoms for Radiation Protection, Imaging and Radiotherapy in Beijing, August 8 and 9, 2011". Abstracts and presentations can be found here: http://www.virtualphantoms.org/3rdWorkshopInBeijing.html
• Group members presented a total of 16 papers at AAPM, ANS, and HPS summer meetings. July 2011.
• A new $1.2 million study led by Rensselaer seeks to develop software for calculating and tracking a patient's radiation exposure from diagnostic X-ray CT scans. More info May 27, 2011.
• Graduate student Lin Su is awarded the 2011-2012 Robert S. Landauer Fellowship from the Health Physics Society. Congratulations Lin! April 2011
• Dr. Peter Caracappa addresses questions about radiation physics and saftey on National Public Radio. In the days since the nuclear incident in Fukushima, Japan, professionals in the nuclear and health physics communities have worked dilgently to improve public understanding of this highly technical subject. March 30, 2011
• PhD. candidate Bin Han has interviewed at top medical centers for a residency position in medical radiotherapeutic physics and, as of today, he has received first-round of offers from Stanford University, MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Chicago and University of Pittsburg. He plans to graduate from RPI in the summer of 2011 and then join Stanford University’s Dept of Radiation Oncology. Congratulations! March 5, 2011
• Congratulations to Dr. Aiping Ding who has been appointed a postdoc research associate, with responsibilities for a number of software projects including VirtualDose funded by the NIH and GPU/CUDA based Monte Carlo code development. January 2011.
• Matt Mille spends the spring semseter performing research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology on PET/CT. His work is funded by a DOE fellowship. January 2011.
• Our group submitted a number of proposals and conference papers in the areas of GPU accelerated Monte Carlo simulations for nuclear power reactor analysis and compressive sensing for nuclear applications. December 2010
• Congratulations to Bin Han who passed his PhD candidacy examination on Nov 19. His dissertation is titled “Modeling and Optimization of Proton Radiography for Image-guided Proton Radiotherapy of Lung Tumors.” November 2010.
• Justin Vazquez and Chris Gaylord are the newest members of the group! Justin is the recipient of a NRC Fellowship. He received his B.S. degree in Physics from The College of William and Mary and is interested in security- and regulation-related applications of radiation dosimetry. Formerly a nuclear mechanic in the Navy, Chris is now working on a co-terminal degree in nuclear engineering and is interested in pursuing a career in health/medical physics. October 2010
• Prof. Xu delivered a plenary presentation for the Joint International Conference of the the 7th Supercomputing in Nuclear Application and the 3rd Monte Carlo (SNA + MC2010) in Tokyo, Japan on October 17-21, 2010.
  “3D/4D Human Modeling and Monte Carlo Dose Calculation for Radiation Protection, Imaging and Radiotherapy”
• Congratulations to Tianyu Liu and Lin Su who have unconditionally passed the Departmental Qualifying Examination, one year earlier than the normal time expected for students without an M.S. degree! September 2010
• Congratulations to Mr. Matt Mille who received the Rensselaer's Founders Award of Excellence. The award was estabished in 1994 to honor students who embody qualities of creativity, discovery, leadership, and the values of pride and responsibility. September 2010
• An article by Drs. Xu and Bednarz is among the top-10 most-cited papers in Physics in Medicine & Biology (PMB) from the last 2 years. July 2010
    Xu XG, Bednarz B, Paganetti H. A review of dosimetry studies on
    external-beam radiation treatment with respect to second cancer
    induction. Phys. Med. Biol. Vol 53 Pages R193-R241, Jul 2008
    http://herald.iop.org/p6/m393/zea/228085/link/3683
• Graduate student Mr. Matt Mille was among 32 students nationwide who were awarded a Nuclear Energy University Program fellowship in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Energy. According to the office of Nuclear Energy, these competitive and prestigious fellowships "will help to recruit and train the next generation of nuclear scientists and engineers – a critical need as the nation moves toward greater use of nuclear energy to meet our energy needs and address the global climate crisis." The fellowship provides Mr. Mille $150,000 over three years to support his PhD research. Congratulations! July 2010
• Graduate student Mr. Matt Mille was selected to share this year's Robert C. Block prize for radiation technology research in RPI's Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics (NEEP) program. Keep up the great work! May 2010
• Graduate student Mr. Tianyu Liu was awarded the Health Physics Society's 2010-2011 Richard J. Burk, Jr. Fellowship. Congratulations! April 16, 2010
• Mr. Jianwei Gu successfully defended his dissertation titled “Development of CT Scanner Models for Patient Organ Dose Calculations Using Monte Carlo Methods,” and will receive a PhD. in Nuclear Engineering and Science in May 2010. Congratulations! March 2010
• Graduate students, Matt Mille and Jianwei Gu, as well as a former student, Amatare Dorgu, presented oral papers at the RAMPS-Vacirca Young Investigators Symposium held at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City on March 9, 2010. Their presentations provided a chance for many medical physicists in New York to learn and critique our excellent research projects. The judges selected the top three presenters and Matt Mille placed second in the competition. Congratulations! March 2010
• Two papers submitted to this year’s Health Physics Society annual meeting by new graduate students, Lin Su and Tianyu Liu, respectively, have been accepted for oral presentations. This is the first conference paper by each of them. Congratulations. March 2010
• The paper by a former group member, Dr. Bednarz, and Dr. Xu, titled "Monte Carlo modeling of a 6 and 18 MV Varian Clinac medical accelerator for in-field and out-of-field dose calculations: development and validation", in Physics in Medicine and Biology, Vol 54, ppN43 (2009), has been downloaded 500 times by the end of 2009. To put this into context, across all IOP journals 3% of articles were accessed over 500 times this year. You can link directly to this article at: http://stacks.iop.org/0031-9155/54/N43
• Mr. Yong Hum Na has successfully defended his dissertation titled “Deformable Adult Human Phantoms for Radiation Protection Dosimetry: Methods for Adjusting Body and Organ Sizes to Match Population-Based Percentile Data,” and will receive a PhD. in Biomedical Engineering in December 2009. Congratulations! December 2009
• Prof. George Xu served as the organizer and moderator of Panel #17: "Second Cancers: Risks, Treatment Modalities and Radiation Dosimetry" for the 2009 ASTRO Annual Meeting, Chicago, November 1 – 5, 2009 (panelists: Drs. John Boice, James Purdy, David Followill and Harald Paganetti) November 2009
• Starting September 1, 2009, Prof. George Xu is on a one-year sabbatical leave as a Visiting Professor of Radiation Oncology of Harvard Medical School working at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on radiation treatment. September 2009
• Graduate student Mr. Aiping Ding has passed the oral Department Qualifying Exam (DQE). Congratulations! September 8, 2009
• The paper titled "Dosimetric Study of Concomitant Patient Doses from kV CBCT Exposure in IGRT Using Advanced Computational Phantoms and Monte Carlo Simulations" by Jianwei Gu et al was recently accepted for presentation as a scientific paper at the 95th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, to be held November 29 - December 04, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois. Keep up the good work! July 17, 2009
• Dr. Mark Winslow and Dr. Brian Wang, recent graduates of our group, have just completed their certification process in Therapeutic Radiologic Physics by the American Board of Radiology. They now join another graduate of our group, Dr. Chengyu Shi, who became a certified medical physicist last year. Congratulations! June 2009
• Dr. Xu was invited to deliver a plenary presentation titled "Two-dosimeter Algorithms for the Assessment of Effective Dose Equivalent," at the opening session of the 41st Annual National Conference on Radiation Control: Advancing Radiation Protection in the 21st Century, Hyatt Regency, Columbus, Ohio, May 18-21, 2009. view
• Dr. Xu is elected as a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) and he and others will be recognized at the AAPM Awards Ceremony and Reception during the 51st AAPM Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California. May 13, 2009
• This year the RRMDG submitted 17 papers to the AAPM 51st Annual Meeting and we are proud to announce that all of them were accepted! This is a testament to our group's exceptional commitment and impressive energy. There will be 9 oral presentations and 8 poster presentations (2 will be moderated). Graduate student Matt Mille's abstract titled "Electronic versus HDR Ir-192 brachytherapy: Organ dose comparison for breast cancer using a Monte Carlo patient phantom" was selected as a finalist in the John R. Cameron Young Investigator Competition. April 30, 2009
• Graduate student Amatare Dorgu has completed his master's thesis titled "Comparison of Out-of-Field Organ Doses from IMRT Plans for Head and Neck Involving the Varian Clinac (TRILOGY) and TomoTherapy Hi-Art II System." He will graduate this May. Great work Amatare! April 30, 2009 view
• Congratulations to graduate student Mr. Matt Mille for receiving the 2009-2010 Burton J. Moyer Memorial Fellowship! This prestigious award is co-sponsored by the Northern California Chapter of HPS and the Health Physics Society. April 27, 2009 view
• Graduate student Mr. Juying Zhang successfully defended his dissertation titled "A Pair of Mesh-based Phantoms Representing ICRP-89 50th-percentile Adult Males and Females for Radiation Protection Dosimetry Using Monte Carlo Simulations." He is scheduled to receive a PhD in the summer of 2009. Starting July 1, he will spend 2 years as a medical physics resident at UC Irvine Medical Center. Congratulations Juying! March 30, 2009
• The paper titled "The development, validation and application of a multi-detector CT (MDCT) scanner model for assessing organ doses to the pregnant patient and the fetus using Monte Carlo simulations" by Jianwei Gu et al was recently sent to Physics in Medicine and Biology and has been published online. Keep up the good work! April 9, 2009. view
• The article by Drs Bednarz and Xu titled "Monte Carlo modeling of a 6 and 18 MV Varian Clinac medical accelerator for in-field and out-of-field dose calculations: development and validation", in Physics in Medicine and Biology, Vol 54, ppN43 (2009), has been downloaded 250 times since it was published on January 14 2009. To put this into context, across all IOP journals only 10% of articles were accessed over 250 times this quarter. Congratulations for this achievement! April 5, 2009. view
• The article by Drs. Xu, Bednarz, and Paganetti titled “A review of dosimetry studies on external-beam radiation treatment with respect to second cancer induction" has been chosen as part of the Physics in Medicine & Biology Highlights of 2008 collection (freely available online until Dec. 31 2009). view
• Graduate student Mr. Matt Mille has passed the oral Department Qualifying Exam (DQE). Congratulations! January 23, 2009.
• Graduate student Mr. Aiping Ding’s paper “A TRAINING SOFTWARE USING VIRTUAL-REALITY TECHNOLOGY AND PRE-CALCULATED EFFECTIVE DOSE DATA” has been accepted for publication in Health Physics Journal. November 24,2008.
• Graduate student Mr. Yong Hum Na is invited to present his paper "A Method to Create Size-Adjustable Whole-Body Patient Models for Radiological Studies of Organ Doses" at MMVR17 conference, January 19-22, 2009, The Hyatt Regency Long Beach, Long Beach, California. November 20, 2008.
• Dr. Bryan Bednarz received the Founders Award of Excellence from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The Founders Award was established in 1994 to honor students who embody qualities of creativity, discovery, leadership, and the values of pride and responsibility at Rensselaer. The award consists of a special certificate, recognition by faculty, staff, and peers at the Honors Convocation ceremony, and a cash prize. This year, Rensselaer is honoring approximately 70 excellent students from the Troy and Hartford campuses. The Rensselaer's Founders Award of Excellence is the highest honor of the Convocation ceremony. Congratulation to Bryan! October 29, 2008. view
• Graduate student, Mr. Jianwei Gu has passed the Ph.D. candidacy examination on October 20 for his research titled "Development and Application of Monte Carlo Models of CT Scanners for Patient Organ Dose Calculations." Congratulations! October 20, 2008.
• Graduate student, Mr. Bin Han is awarded RPI's 2008-2009 Van Auken Research Fellowship Award. Congratulations! October 20, 2008.
• Graduate student, Mr. Yong Hum Na has passed the Ph.D. candidacy examination on October 15 for his research titled "Development of Deformable Whole-Body Patient Models Using Polygonal Mesh Modeling for Radiological Studies." Congratulations! October 15, 2008.
• Graduate student, Mr. Matt Mille and Dr. Binquan Zhang attended the CIRMS meeting recently at NIST and delivered three invited presentations. October 11, 2008.
• Graduate student, Mr. Bin Han's paper "Evaluation of Nuclear Activation of Tungsten Plates for Future Modeling of a Medical Accelerator" has been accepted for publication by Nuclear Technology. October 10, 2008.
• Dr. Bryan Bednarz has received a PhD degree in August 2008 for his research titled "Detailed Varian Clinac Accelerator Modeling for Calculating Intermediate- and Low-level Non-target Organ Doses from Radiation Treatments" and is now a post-doctoral research associate working on proton treatment with Dr. Harald Paganetti at the Mass General Hospital in Boston. October 1, 2008
• Ionizing radiation: the double-edged sword. MEDICALPHYSICSWEB.ORG NEWSWIRE (Week 34) August 2008. view
• "Highlights of the Health Physics Society Meeting in Pittsburgh, July 14-17", Medical News Today, July 11, 2008. view
• News from Arab Health World Journal. March-April, 2008. view
• News from RT image (COVER). October, 2007. view
• Mr. Jianwei Gu's first paper "Assessment of patient organ doses and effective doses using the VIP-Man adult male phantom for selected cone-beam CT imaging procedures during image guided radiation therapy" has been accepted for publication by Radiation protection Dosimetry. July 07, 2008.
• An invited review article by Dr. Xu, Bryan Bednarz and Dr. Paganetti of Mass General Hospital on radiation dose assessment related second cancer after radiotherapy is featured by the MEDICALPHYSICSWEB.ORG NEWSWIRE. June 17, 2008. view
• Safer Radiation for Mothers. Rensselaer Alumni Magazine - SPRING 2008. view
• RRMDG group has a total of 8 oral and 6 poster presentations at the 2008 HPS and AAPM annual meetings. May 12, 2008
• Dr. Xu gave a keynote presentation for UCLA Biomedical Physics Graduate Program Annual Colloquium on May 9, 2008. view
• Graduate student, Mr. Bryan Bednarz's paper titled "A feasibility study to calculate unshielded fetal doses to pregnant patients in 6-MV photon treatments using Monte Carlo methods and anatomically realistic phantoms" has been accepted for publication by Medical Physics. Congratulations! May 10, 2008
• Visiting scholar Dr. Binquan Zhang and graduate student Mr. Matt Mille's first paper titled " An analysis of dependency of counting efficiency on worker anatomy for in-vivo measurements: whole-body counting" has been accepted for publication by Physics in Medicine and Biology. Congratulations! May 9, 2008
• Dr. Xu is elected a council member by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. He will serve for a 6-year term with other leading scientists in the United States on various issues important to the Council. April 25, 2008. view
• Graduate student, Mr. Bin Han, is awarded Health Physics Society's 2008-2009 Robert Gardner Fellowship Award. Congratulations! May 1, 2008
• Graduate student, Mr. Bryan Bednarz, is awarded American Nuclear Society's Everitt P. Blizard Scholarship Award. Congratulations! April 24, 2008
• Undergraduate students, Adam Daskalakis, Chris Geiser, Matt Haggstrom, and Piotr Starakiwicz, who spent one year on their senior design project, "Shielding Design Optimization for Medical Accelerator Treatment Rooms", presented their results on April 25, 2008 showing these interesting slides. Their design will help Mass General Hospital to design the radiation treatment room. view
• A model patient, timesunion.com, Monday, April 28, 2008. view
• Limited exposure, Advance for Imaging and Radiation Therapy Professionals, April 14, 2008. Vol.21 No.9. view
• Safer, more accurate, and more effective radiation therapy for pregnant women , BIZCOMMUNITY , Jan. 7, 2008. view
• Radiotherapy in pregnancy: improving safety, Medical Physics Web , Jan. 2, 2008. view
• Graduate student, Mr. Bryan Bednarz, is awarded Student/Young Scientist Travel Award to attend the International Conference on Radiation Shielding-11 in Pine Mountain Georgia , April 13-18, 2008. view
• Congratulations to Dr. Binquan Zhang for submitting his first paper here at RPI (within 2-months after his arrival) and Matt Mille for submitting his first scientific paper ever !
• One of the papers, Xu XG, Taranenko V, Zhang JY and Shi CY, “A boundary-representation method…” has been rated among 30 of the best and most popular articles from the 550 articles published in Physics in Medicine & Biology and is included in the Highlights of 2007 (freely available online until Dec. 31 2008). view
• Summary about" A boundary-representation method for designing whole-body radiation dosimetry models: pregnant females at the ends of three gestational periods-RPI-P3, -P6 and -P9 ",The BCN (BreastCancer.Net) News, Dec. 25, 2007.
• Safer, more accurate, and more effective radiation therapy for pregnant women, News-Medical.Net, Dec. 21, 2007. view
• Safer, More Accurate Radiation Therapy for Expecting Mothers, News from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, December 18, 2007. view
• Graduate student, Mr. Bryan Bednarz passed his PhD candidacy exam titled “Monte Carlo Modeling of Medical Accelerators for the Calculation of Patient Organ Doses Due to Secondary Radiation.” Congratulations !! December 15, 2007.
• Graduate student, Mr. Jianwei Gu, is awarded a travel grant to present paper at CIRMS 2007.
• Screen Savior: Computers are revamping cancer research, diagnosis and treatment. ADVANCE for Imaging and Oncology, Volume 17 Number 10. October 2007 view
• Perfect Exposure ‘Virtual Patient’ simulates real-time organ motions for radiation therapy,RT Image - vol. 20, no. 40 - October 1, 2007. view
• "A Virtual Patient To Simulate Real-Time Organ Motions",Rensselaer Research Review, Summer 2007. view
• "Mr.Bryan Bednarz wins award from the Accelerator Section of Health Physics Society". view
• "Virtual man" learns to breathe.Medicalphysicsweb Jul 6, 2007. view
• Virtual patient model monitors organ movement in real time, BIOPHOTONICS INTERNATIONAL - July 2007. view
• Radiation therapy for ‘Virtual Patient’, Cancer war , June 29, 2007
• Researchers add twist of time,Times Union - June 14, 2007. view
• CTRC to share in $2 million National Institutes of Health grant, San Antonio Business Journal - June 6, 2007. view
• 4-D man could help cancer scientists, San Antonio Express-News - June 6, 2007.
• "Virtual Patient" To Simulate Real-Time Organ Motions for Radiation Therapy,Rensselaer's News & Information, June 4, 2007. view
• Rensselaer researchers awarded major NIH grant to develop 4-D virtual patient model, Rensselaer School of Engineering New & Events - May 31, 2007. view
• 4-D Visible Photographic Man could significantly improve the accuracy and effectiveness of radiation treatment for lung and liver cancers, What's Next In Science & Technology , May 31, 2007. view
• Virtual Patient To Simulate Real-Time Organ Motions for Radiation Therapy, Rensselaer - May 30, 2007. view
• Virtual Patient To Simulate Real-Time Organ Motions for Radiation Therapy, PHYSORG.com - May 30, 2007. view
• Virtual Patient To Simulate Real-Time Organ Motions For Radiation Therapy, INTERN DAILY, May 31, 2007. view
• Dr. Xu receives 2006 Rensselaer School of Engineering Excellence in Research Award, School of Engineering Performance Plan - April, 2006. view
• RPI:School of Engineering News 2006, Rensselaer Engineering News - Winter 2006. view
• People's Daily Online, www.people.com.cn - October 25, 2005. view
• Perfect Exposure, Rensselaer Alumni Magazine - FALL 2005. view
• Radiation and the Human Body, Rensselaer Research Review - FALL 2005.
• Virtual Patients, Rensselaer Research Review - FALL 2005.
• HPS Members Receive NIH Grants to Improve Human Phantoms and Dosimetry, Health Physics News (Page 14) - October 2005. view
• Researchers Awarded NIH Grant to Develop Virtual Patient Models, SpaceDaily - Aug 17, 2005. view
• RPI to Develop 3-D Patient Models, News of Photonics - Aug 17, 2005. view
• "The Record", A local newspaper in Troy, NY - Aug 16, 2005. view
• Rensselaer Researchers Awarded NIH Grant To Develop Virtual Patient Models, RPI:School of Engineering News - Aug 16, 2005. view
• Rensselaer Researchers Awarded NIH Grant To Develop Virtual Patient Models, Rensselaer - Aug 11, 2005. view
• The Third Dimension: 3D MRI, CT and Ultrasound are Catching On, Issue: July 2000: AHRA Preview. view
• 3-D Patients Simulate Radiation Doses for Real Patients, Homepage of Rensselaer News. view
• 3-D, Virtual Man Simulates Radiation's Effect On The Body, ScienceDaily News - 1999-09-02. view
• Faculty Member Receives NSF Award, RPI School of Engineering Newsletter. view
• "RT Image" - Dec 20, 1999. view
• Virtual man simulates effects of radiation, Biophotonics International (Page 1) - Oct 1999. view
• Monte Carlo-Coded Visible Human Images Realistically Simulate Radiation Dose Effects, Radiology&Imaging Letter - Oct 1, 1999. view
• 3 - D Model for Radiation Treatment Planning, Nuclear Energy Insight - Oct 1999. view
• "Environmental News Network" .
• "Focus"--a German magazine - 1999. view
• "Apple Daily"--a Hong Kong Chinese newspaper .
• "Daily University Science News".
• "The Record" --A local newspaper in Troy, NY - Aug 1999. view
• George Xu Receives NSF Award, HPS Newsletter - Aug 1999. view
• "REVIEW" Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
• Teaming with gamma rays, Photonics Spectra - Feb 1999. view
• "REVIEW" Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.