Laurence Court, Ph.D.
Associate Professor - Radiation Physics and Imaging Physics departments

Ph.D. - Physics (digital mammography), University College London, United Kingdom (1995)
B.Sc. - Physics with Medical Physics, University College London, United Kingdom (1992)

After completing his doctorate on digital mammography system design in the UK, Laurence received a fellowship from the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, and moved to Japan for work experience with Sony.  He then stayed in Japan for six years, ending up working in the Digital X-ray System Development Group at Canon Inc.

He then took a two-year postdoctoral fellow position with Lei Dong, Ph.D. at MD Anderson, where he worked on a brand new CT-on-rails image-guidance system, before joining Brigham & Women’s Hospital / Dana-Farber Cancer Center (Harvard Medical School) as a staff physicist. There, he had a variety of roles, including setting up the physics aspects of the head and neck IMRT service and leadership of two new satellite locations.

In 2010, Laurence was hired back at MD Anderson, where he joined the Physics Infrastructure Group. In addition to his clinical responsibilities, he now runs a research group of 24 faculty, staff and graduate students. His current research interests are (1) the use of images to quantify or predict treatment response (tumors and normal tissue), and (2) approaches to improve the availability of cancer treatments in low- and middle-resource regions of the world.

For more information, please visit his MD Anderson profile.

Lifei Joy Zhang, Ph.D.
Manager, Scientific Computing Research - Radiation Physics

Ph.D. - Information Processing, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China (2003)
M.S. - Electrical Engineering, Institute of Chinese Aerospace, China (2000)
B.S. - Electrical Engineering, Luoyang Institute of Technology, China (1997)

Joy’s research interests focus on applying computer science techniques into radiation therapy research and transferring research outcome into clinical applications for the goal of improving the quality of patient care. In the past, she designed and developed an online high-resolution targeting and positioning system (CAT) to make it possible for radiation therapists to accurately and efficiently target and position patients during daily treatments. To facilitate data exchange robustly among the different treatment planning systems (TPS), she implemented TPS data conversion software so researchers can easily exchange data from one TPS to another TPS. She has also researched patient’s intra-fractional and inter-fractional changes during the course of treatment, investigated the necessity and eligibility of adaptive image-guided radiotherapy (ART) and further implemented ART infrastructure in the department. Aiming to improve efficiency and accuracy of clinical practice, she has designed and implemented many clinical-oriented softwares such as high-resolution DRR generator, PET SUV convertor, OBI Add-Iso software, 4DCT viewer, beam-specific PTV software and small animal treatment planning system. She routinely provides support for projects from of both clinicians and graduate students.

The current focus of her work is the development of the Radiation Planning Assistant, including algorithm development and system integration.

Jinzhong Yang, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor - Radiation Physics

Ph.D. - Electrical Engineering, Lehigh University, PA (2006)
M.S. - Electrical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China (2001)
B.S. - Electrical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China (1998)

Jinzhong earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with research focusing on the fundamental algorithm development of image registration and fusion methodologies. He completed his postdoctoral training at University of Pennsylvania, where he developed deformable image registration methods to analyze diffusion tensor images for brain disorder diagnosis. In 2008, he joined MD Anderson Cancer Center as a Sr. Computational Scientist and concentrated his research on atlas-based segmentation and deformable image registration to improve radiation treatment planning and image-guided adaptive radiotherapy. In 2015, he became an Assistant Professor at MD Anderson.

His major research interest is the development of novel image segmentation and deformable registration approaches for radiation oncology applications. He is also interested in radiation treatment related geometric and dosimetric uncertainties, texture features for radiation treatment outcome modeling and prediction (Radiomics), and novel imaging methodologies and applications in radiotherapy.

For more information, please visit his MD Anderson profile.

Deborah Mann
Program Manager – Radiation Physics

Deborah joined the Radiation Physics department in 2011 and the Court Lab in 2017.  She serves as a point of contact and link between lab members, internal departments and external parties including vendors and collaborating institutions. She manages administrative needs, analyzes and improves office processes and policies, and ensures that the lab operates smoothly.

Callistus Nguyen, Ph.D.
Computational Scientist – Radiation Physics

Ph.D. - Biomedical Engineering, Virginia Tech - Wake Forest University, School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, VA (2017)
M.S. - Biomedical Engineering, Virginia Tech - Wake Forest University, School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, VA (2014)
B.S. - Biophysics, Wake Forest University, NC (2010)

Callistus earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering with a concentration in Medical Physics. His research focused on developing a predictive maintenance methodology for linear accelerators by utilizing statistical process control techniques on RapidArc performance parameters. He completed his postdoctoral training at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he worked on projects related to the application of radiomics on cancer treatment and prevention. In 2018, he joined MD Anderson Cancer Center as a Research Engineer and developed the tools, workflow and documentation to support automation research and translate such work into the clinic. In 2021, he became a Computational Scientist.

His major research is to provide technical support for clinical research and developmental projects by developing new algorithms, communicating with the industry partners to improve computational infrastructure, and implementing new software for dose computations, treatment planning, measurements and image processing. He also applies computer science techniques into radiation therapy research and transfers research outcomes into clinical applications for the goal of improving the quality of patient care. He routinely provides support for projects from both clinicians and graduate students.

Adenike (Niki) Olanrewaju, M.B.A., C.M.D.
Medical Dosimetrist – Radiation Physics

M.B.A. - Global Management, University of Houston - Bauer College of Business, TX (2012)
B.S. - Medical Dosimetry, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX (2006)

Niki is a certified Medical Dosimetrist with over a decade of experience with external beam radiation therapy at MD Anderson. She holds a master’s degree in Business Administration and has worked on various projects in the department to streamline processes and improve clinical efficiencies. Her current interest within the group focuses on the development of clinically acceptable treatment plans for all anatomical sites that conform to MD Anderson standards using a knowledge-based planning approach.

Wenhua Cao, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor - Radiation Physics

Ph.D. - Industrial Engineering, University of Houston, TX (2011)
B.S. - Transportation Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China (2003)

Wenhua was trained in operations research and optimization. After obtaining his Ph.D., he became a research assistant professor at the University of Houston. He developed various methods for optimizing proton therapy during his collaboration with physicists from MD Anderson. Then he joined MD Anderson in 2016. He started developing novel optimization approaches to manage physical and biological uncertainties in proton therapy that led to new clinical trials. His current research focuses on particle therapy, automated treatment planning and modelling of radiation-induced toxicities.

Tucker Netherton, Ph.D., D.M.P.
 Assistant Professor – Radiation Physics

Tucker received his Doctorate of Medical Physics degree and completed a clinical residency in therapeutic medical physics at Vanderbilt University in 2016. Pursuing further education, he entered the Ph.D. program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences with Dr. Laurence Court as his advisor. His early graduate work was centered around the commissioning of new external beam treatment devices. His thesis focused on applying machine and deep learning to vertebral body labeling and automatic treatment planning for spinal radiotherapy.

In May of 2021, he became an Assistant Professor in the Radiation Physics Department at MD Anderson Cancer Center within the head and neck, lymphoma, melanoma, and sarcoma service. His research involves developing tools to 1) expedite clinical processes for automatic medical image segmentation of normal and cancerous tissues, 2) predict treatment planning errors that pose risks to patient care, and 3) aid decision making in radiotherapy treatment planning.

He currently serves as a faculty researcher on the Radiation Planning Assistant team and specializes in applications of machine and deep learning to treatment planning and image segmentation. Dr. Netherton is passionate about research, clinical work, and graduate education.

Christine Chung, M.S., C.M.D.
Medical Dosimetrist

M.S. – Radiologic Sciences, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX (2021)
B.S. – Medical Dosimetry, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX (2019)
B.S. – Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, TX (2013)

Christine’s past research experience was in translational and clinical research in gynecologic oncology at MD Anderson, and her past clinical experience was as a medical dosimetrist at MD Anderson’s Proton Therapy Center. Her current research focuses on developing high-quality automated treatment plans for new anatomical sites for use in the Radiation Planning Assistant and Varian ePeerReview projects.

Raphael Douglas
Research Assistant II

B.S. - Physics, Davidson College, NC (2017)

Raphael's undergraduate research focused on using automation to eliminate mode-hopping in a Coherent 899-21 Ring Laser. Currently, he is working on testing the Radiation Planning Assistant software for quality assurance and assisting with the various deep-learning projects within the lab.
 

Pavel Govyadinov, Ph.D.
Computational Scientist

Ph.D. – Computer Science (Visualization), University of Houston, TX (2019)
M.S. – Computer Information Technology (Parallel Computing), University of Oregon, OR (2014)
B.S. – Physics, University of Oregon, OR (2011)

Pavel earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science with research focusing on segmentation, visualization and analysis of microvascular data. Post-graduation, Pavel was accepted as a post-doctoral fellow for the National Library of Medicine’s Program in Biomedical Informatics and continued the fellowship for the maximum allowed 2 years in a project focusing on exploiting graph structures to  generating synthetic simplified-but-realistic microvascular data for next generation bio-printing. 

In 2022, Pavel joined MD Anderson Cancer Center as a Computational Scientist and concentrates his research on developing method to improve the quality and robustness of the RPA platform through exploitation of synthetic data using his previous research and industry experience.

Jean Guma-De La Vega
Research Assistant I

B.S. Mathematics with Computer Science minor, Pace university, NY (2021)

With a background in Mathematics and Computer Science, Jean's interests lie in their general application within the various fields of physics. Currently, Jean is working on assisting in tasks within the deep-learning projects in the lab.

Alexandra (Alex) Leone
Research Assistant II

M.B.S. - Biomedical Sciences, Nova Southeastern University, FL (2021)
B.S. - Physics, The University of Alabama, AL (2020)

Alex's research interests focus on the intersection of patient care and predicting patient outcomes to radiotherapy treatment. Her current project includes developing a score card to evaluate physician’s treatment plans.

Raymond Mumme
Research Assistant II

B.S. - Physics and Chemistry, University of Notre Dame, IN (2015)

Raymond's past research at CERN involved optimizing Monte Carlo dosimetry calculation methods in treatment planning for thyroid cancer. His current projects include comparison of deformable vs. rigid image registration techniques and development of a treatment planning library database.  

Saurabh Nair
Research Assistant II

M.S. – Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Arlington (2021)
B. Tech. – Biomedical Engineering, DY Patil University, Navi Mumbai, India (2018)

Saurabh’s graduate research involved working in the Optical Imaging domain studying about Brain Activation using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy. His current research focuses on Predicting the Toxic Effects of Radiation Therapy using Machine Learning models.

Kristina Smith
Administrative Coordinator

Kristina joined the Radiation Physics department in 2018 and Court Lab in 2020. She serves as the administrative support for the Court lab.

Hana Baroudi
Graduate Research Assistant

M.S. - Physics, American University of Beirut
B.S.- Physics, Beirut Arab University

Hana’s research interests include radiation therapy for breast cancer. She is currently working on automating the treatment process for breast cancer radiotherapy using machine learning tools. Hana is also interested in working on correlating breast radiotherapy induced toxicity to dosimetric and clinical predictors.

Xinru Chen
Graduate Research Assistant

M.S. - Medical Physics, Duke University, NC (2020)
B.S. - Nuclear Engineering, Tsinghua University, China (2012)

Xinru is interested in radiomics and deep learning based techniques in radiotherapy. His M.S. research focused on quantitative lung ventilation radiomics. He is currently working on synthetic CT generation and auto-segmentation in MRI.

Daniel El Basha
Graduate Research Assistant

B.S. - Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida, FL (2019)

Daniel completed his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida, working towards a Ph.D. in medical physics in the MD Anderson UTH GSBS medical physics program. His research interests are computational modeling and deep learning with applications toward addressing crippling diseases. He is currently working to specifically address the automation and optimization of prostate cancer treatment planning using deep learning models.

Skylar Gay
Graduate Research Assistant

B.S. - Physics, Houston Baptist University, TX (2020)

Skylar's research interest is in using deep learning to provide rapid radiotherapy planning and improve quality of life in low-resource clinical and palliative care settings. His current focus is on automating head-and-neck cancer treatment planning.

Mary Gronberg
Graduate Research Assistant

M.S. - Medical Physics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX (2018)
B.S. - Nuclear and Radiological Engineering, The Georgia Institute of Technology, GA (2016)

After completing her master’s degree, Mary decided to continue at MD Anderson to pursue her Ph.D. in medical physics. Her M.S. research focused on the development of a mailable independent peer review system to verify dose delivery in orthovoltage small animal irradiators. For her Ph.D. research, she is using deep learning techniques to automate quality assurance of radiation treatment plans.
 

Soleil Hernandez
Graduate Research Assistant

B.S. - Nuclear Engineering with a minor in Mathematics, Texas A&M University, TX (2018)

Soleil earned her B.S. in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M University where she worked on 3D printing devices designed to increase the efficacy of radiation therapy treatments. She began her Ph.D. in Medical Physics in the fall of 2018 and now works towards utilizing deep learning to automate the treatment planning process for pediatric brain tumors.

Kai Huang
Graduate Research Assistant

B.A. - Physics and Mathematics, Carleton College, MN (2016)

After completing her Bachelor’s degree, Kai worked at Mevion Medical Systems before joining the lab. Kai is currently working on automating radiation treatment planning process for rectal cancer.
 

Vi Ly
Graduate Research Assistant

B.S. - Data Science, University of Houston-Downtown, TX (2019)

Vi obtained his B.S. degree from the University of Houston-Downtown.  He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Biostatistics at UTHealth. Vi’s research interests are in several topics of deep learning and statistical modelling techniques in medical imaging. In Court Lab, his research focuses on the development of deep learning techniques for the quality assurance of contouring.

Barbara Marquez
Graduate Research Assistant

B.A. - Physics, Mount Holyoke College, MA (2019)

Barbara's research interests include leveraging automation to provide wide-spread access to a comprehensive treatment planning system for under-resourced countries. Her current project aims to automate and optimize peer review of contours for radiation therapy. Barbara is also interested in the enhancement of the full value of physics in radiation oncology practice.

Kelly Nealon
Graduate Research Assistant

M.S. - Medical Physics, Vanderbilt University, TN (2017)
B.S. - Physics, Siena College, NY (2015)

Following the completion of a two-year therapy physics residency at The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, Kelly joined the lab and is interested in improving the quality of clinical care available in low-resource countries. Her research is focused on developing a safe and effective deployment strategy for artificial intelligence-based treatment planning tools.

Ramon Salazar
Postdoctoral Fellow

Ph.D. – Experimental Particle Physics, University of Texas at Austin (2021)
B.S. - Physics, University of Texas at Austin (2010)

Ramon earned his Ph.D. in Experimental Particle Physics with a focus on neutrinoless double beta decay searches. His graduate work involved the research, development, construction, and installation of two calibration systems designed for a detector searching for that specific decay, and he also participated in many of the detector building operations. His input into the calibration systems involved manipulating calibration sources, light emitting diodes, fiber optic cables, plastic scintillator blocks, and electrical circuits. In 2021, he became a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

He is currently active in toxicity modeling research using machine learning approaches, and he is studying the effects on NTCP models from data obtained through deep learning segmentation of organs at risk.

Carlos Sjogreen
Graduate Research Assistant

M.Sc. - Physics, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia (2015)
Mechanical Engineer, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Colombia (2003)

Carlos’ research interest is in AI in healthcare, focusing in particular on deep learning approaches. He is currently working on the auto-segmentation of clinical target volumes (CTVs) for head-and-neck patients.
 

Cenji Yu
Graduate Research Assistant

B.S. - Physics, Wake Forest University, NC (2018)

Cenji is interested in developing deep learning based automation tools for radiation therapy. He is currently working on automating the pancreas and liver treatment planning process.
 

Yao Zhao
Graduate Research Assistant

M.S. - Medical Physics, Duke University, NC (2019)
B.S. - Physics, Lanzhou University, China (2016)

Yao’s research interests are focused on development of deep learning techniques for radiation therapy treatment planning. His M.S. research was applying deep learning method to augment CBCT image quality. His current research focuses on developing tools for auto-segmentation used for radiotherapy treatment planning.