An expert on innovations in medical imaging systems, Brian Pogue, PhD, will be the next chair of the Department of Medical Physics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. His anticipated start date is January 2022.
Pogue has been a professor at Dartmouth College for 25 years. His research is within medical physics and biomedical engineering, with a core theme of advanced optical tools that allow for advances in surgical and radiation therapy guidance, photodynamic therapy, molecular imaging, and theranostics, which is the cutting-edge combination of the principles of therapeutics and diagnostics. His grant funding from the National Institutes of Health has totaled more than $37 million while at Dartmouth.
“I regard the Department of Medical Physics at Wisconsin as one of the crown jewels of the medical physics field and look forward to continuing its strong traditions,” Pogue said. “We are perfectly poised to strengthen the department even further by focusing on those aspects of medical physics where discoveries and inventions lead to engineering devices and entrepreneurship activity. This pathway advances both fundamental research as well as translational tools that change the field of medicine. The education model at Wisconsin represents the premier experience for any graduate student in medical physics.”
Pogue earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in physics from York University in Toronto, Canada, and his PhD in medical physics in 1996 from McMaster University in Canada. He completed a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, prior to joining the faculty at Dartmouth.
Pogue has published over 400 peer-reviewed journal articles and taught classes in electrical and biomedical engineering. He served as director of the MS and PhD programs in engineering intermittently from 2004 through 2019, with a four-year term as dean of graduate studies for Dartmouth College.
In 2015 he established the PhD program in medical physics at Dartmouth, which is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Education Programs, and was also co-founder of Dartmouth’s Center for Imaging Medicine, where engineers now work inside the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
An accomplished inventor, Pogue holds 12 patents with another 12 pending, and has co-founded and led two companies, including DoseOptics LLC, which is advancing the world’s only camera system to image radiation dose in patients receiving radiotherapy. His accolades include being elected as a fellow of the Optical Society of America, the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Biomedical Optics, published by SPIE.
The Department of Medical Physics, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary, develops solutions for accurate diagnosis and optimized treatment of human disease using applications of physics, and trains the next generation of medical physicists. It offers graduate and residency programs in medical physics and provides medical physics services for patient care.
“We are delighted to welcome Brian Pogue as chair of our Department of Medical Physics,” said Robert N. Golden, MD, dean of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. “His outstanding background as an innovative researcher, deeply respected mentor and teacher, and highly productive entrepreneur will contribute to the continued evolution of this world renowned department.”