Meet the Team

Li Wang, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Dr. Wang has a strong background in radiation biology, cancer biology, radiation sensitization and radiation-induced normal tissue damage. Her current research focuses on investigating the biological effects and mechanisms of protons and photons using various head and neck cell lines and in vivo tumor models. Her other projects include exploring blocking DNA damage repair pathways to enhance the effects of protons and photons, determining the tumor and normal tissue effects of FLASH versus conventional radiation and researching radiation-induced immune cell changes.

Geping Fang, B.S.
Research Assistant II

Geping joined the Frank Lab in January 2024 and works on both in vitro and in vivo experiments. For in vitro work, she is in charge of cell culturing, cell line continuance and radiobiology-related experiments. She also has extensive experience performing in vivo experiments and is currently conducting radiation response experiments using head and neck and prostate cancer models.

Yinhan Zhang, Ph.D.
Senior Research Assistant

Dr. Zhang has extensive experience in performing in vitro and in vivo radiation biology experiments, including the generating of head and neck xenograft models and orthotopic syngeneic models in mice. He joined the Frank Lab in February 2020. Currently he focuses on both in vivo and in vitro experiments and is also conducting blood sample collection and processing for Phase III clinical trials.

Stephanie Dudzinski, M.D., Ph.D.
Resident

Dr. Dudzinski is a resident in the department of Radiation Oncology. She has extensive experience in research related to radiation-induced immune system changes. Her current research focuses on investigating the biological effects and mechanisms of TP-508 on radiation-induced immune cell changes in eyes and using imaging markers as a tool to monitor the changes.

Narayan Sahoo, Ph.D.
Professor

Dr. Sahoo leads patient care at the Proton Therapy Center. His work includes overseeing the proton beam quality control, proton dose accuracy and proton beam delivery. He is a major collaborator with the Frank Lab in investigating the biological response of head and neck cancer cells and in vivo tumors to proton and photon radiation.

Matthew Kerr, B.S.
Senior Physicist Assistant

Matt’s major focuses are on quality control in proton therapy for patient care and proton therapy-related research. He is investigating the biological responses to proton and photon radiation of head and neck cancer cell lines and tumors in animal models. His main role is in quality control of the experiments, including proton and photon dose accuracy, radiation set-up and beam deliveries.

Yuting Li, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

Dr. Li is a board-certified medical physicist in radiotherapy, with a focus on patient care related to proton therapy. On the research side, she works on the optimization of intensity modulated photon/proton radiotherapy (IMRT/IMPT). She also uses her physics expertise to collaborate with the biologists in the Frank Lab to investigate the biological response of head and neck cancer and prostate cancer cells and in vivo tumor models to proton and photon radiation. She plays a major role in photon and proton radiation set-up, dose accuracy and beam delivery and is also a member of the FLASH study team.

Xiaochun Wang, Ph.D.
Professor

Dr. Wang is a board-certified medical physicist in radiotherapy who focuses on patient care. On the research side, she works on the optimization of intensity modulated photon/proton radiotherapy (IMRT/IMPT), automatic treatment planning techniques, four-dimensional (4D) IMRT and 4D robust IMPT. She works with the biologists in the Frank Lab to investigate biological responses of head and neck cancer cells to proton and photon radiation. She plays a major role in photon radiation set-up, dose accuracy and beam delivery in experiments and is also an important member of the FLASH study team.

X. Ronald Zhu, Ph.D.
Professor

Dr. Zhu is in charge of patient care and research at the Proton Therapy Center. His duties include overseeing the quality control of patient treatment and supervising proton radiation research. His research focus is investigating the biological response of head and neck cancer cells and in vivo tumors to proton and photon radiation. He also plays a major role in the Frank Lab’s biological research related to FLASH, overseeing FLASH and conventional radiation set-up, radiation dose accuracy and radiation beam delivery for all in vitro and in vivo experiments.

Ming Yang, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Dr. Yang’s main research focus is on improving the quality and robustness of proton radiation therapy by employing either advanced imaging techniques, such as dual-energy CT, or advanced computational/optimization algorithms, such as deep learning-based algorithms. His other research includes the development of new methods to objectively assess the robustness of conventional and FLASH proton treatment plans to ensure the fair comparison of proton versus photon therapy and assessing conventional dose rate proton versus FLASH therapy on in vitro and in vivo head and neck tumor response. He plays a major role in proton dosimetry accuracy for the Frank Lab.

Uwe Titt, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Dr. Titt's expertise lies in ensuring the accuracy of radiation dosages, including conventional dose rate proton and FLASH proton radiation, using Monte Carlo calculations. He leads the FLASH proton beam set-up, optimization and fine-tuning for Dr. Frank’s FLASH study and has developed a collimator specifically to generate proton FLASH beams for FLASH-related experiments in cell lines and in orthotopic syngeneic animal models of head and neck cancer.

Jingfei Ma, Ph.D., D.A.B.R.
Professor

Dr. Ma is the director of the MR Applications Laboratory. His primary research interests are in the development of novel MRI techniques and clinical applications, particularly in phase-sensitive MRI, motion management and functional MRI (e.g., DWI, DCE-MRI, MRS) for improved MRI visibility. He is a major collaborator with the Frank Lab and oversees the development of novel multi-imaging modality fiducial markers and the application of MARS.

Falk Poenisch, Ph.D., D.A.B.R.
Associate Professor

Dr. Poenisch’s research interests include developing a quality assurance procedure for proton scanning beam treatment plans and working to predict malfunctions that might occur in pacemakers during radiation therapy, helping physicians to decide which patients can be safely treated with proton therapy. He collaborates with Dr. Frank in the development of novel multi-imaging modality fiducial markers, studying the influence of these markers on proton and photon radiation doses.

Teresa Bruno, B.S.N.
Senior Research Assistant

Teresa is a Certified Medical Dosimetrist with extensive experience calculating the dose distribution of implanted radioactive seeds in brachytherapy. She is also an expert in evaluating the quality of brachytherapy treatment plans. She leads the evaluation of novel multi-imaging modality fiducial markers and MRI-guided brachytherapy treatment plans, as well as the development of MRI marker-based auto-treatment plans for brachytherapy.

Howard Thames Jr., Ph.D.
Professor, Biostatistics

Dr. Thames is a statistician with extensive experience in the analysis of patient treatment outcomes and the comparison of different treatments. He is working with Dr. Frank to investigate the factors that influence treatment outcomes in patients with prostate cancer, including tumor control, patient survival, treatment failure and treatment-related toxicities. He is also assisting in analyses of the impact of novel multi-imaging modality fiducial markers on the outcomes of patients with prostate cancer treated with brachytherapy and external beam radiation.

Rasha Sareyeldin, M.D.
Research Data Coordinator

Dr. Sareyeldin joined the Frank Lab in 2025 as a data coordinator to assist on a Phase III clinical trial investigating the effect of proton versus photon on tumor control and toxicity in patients with head and neck cancers. She currently also manages various prostate cancer and head and neck cancer clinical studies and projects at the Proton Therapy Center.

Aileen Mapps, M.S.
Senior Clinical Research Program Coordinator 

Aileen is the team lead for the Radiation Oncology department’s clinical studies regulatory team and has worked at MD Anderson for 8 years. She works with Dr. Frank on the Phase II/III clinical trial investigating the effects of proton versus photon therapy on tumor control and toxicity in patients with head and neck cancers. She has a wealth of knowledge and skills on both the clinical and administrative sides, which has proven instrumental in her providing effective and efficient assistance and clinical research navigation support for Dr. Frank’s nationwide clinical trials.

Mike Hernandez, M.S.
Senior Biostatistician, Biostatistics

David Swanson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Biostatistics

Xiaodong Zhang, Ph.D.
Professor

Dr. Zhang is a board certified medical physicist in radiotherapy. His major role is patient care in the Proton Therapy Center. His research has focused on optimizing intensity modulated photon/proton radiotherapy (IMRT/IMPT), automatic treatment planning techniques, four-dimensional (4D) IMRT and 4D robust IMPT. He has also worked on a Phase II/III clinical trial investigating the effect of proton versus photon therapy on tumor control and toxicity in patients with head and neck cancers, with a focus on collecting and analyzing the dosimetric data for proton therapy.

Yaying Shi, Ph.D.
Medical Physics Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Shi has expertise in the development of toxicity risk predicting models. He is working with Dr. Frank on the project, "Improve lifelong quality of life (QOL) and health among oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) survivors by delivering non-invasive clinic-ready markers of delayed adverse treatment sequelae and novel mitigation strategies." His work includes performing dosimetry analysis and helping generate the toxicity prediction model.