In 2018, former Academy President Dr. Hedvig Hricak convened a task force to review and refine the process for this initiative and ensure transparency. Dr. Jason Lewis’s leadership of this task force along with Dr. Pamela Woodard and Dr. Norbert Pelc has been essential to the creation of guidelines used in this year’s ranking. The Academy thanks the task force and for their leadership and diligence to ensure that this valuable initiative continued to instill pride in radiology research and confidence in the Academy.
*Academy staff member Casey Cappelletti collected, collated, disseminated and collectively verified all of the data used in the 2019 ranking chart.*
Professor Jason S. Lewis is the Emily Tow Jackson Chair in Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and currently serves as Vice Chair for Research and as the Chief of the Radiochemistry & Imaging Sciences Service in MSKCC’s Department of Radiology. He is the Director of MSKCC’s Radiochemistry and Molecular Imaging Probe Core Facility and is Director of the MSKCC Center for Molecular Imaging & Nanotechnology. He is a Member in MSKCC, Laboratory Head in the Sloan-Kettering Institute’s Molecular Pharmacology and Chemistry Program, and a Professor at the Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and at Weill-Cornell Medical College. Professor Lewis earned a B.Sc. in Chemistry (1992) and a M.Sc. (1993) in Chemistry from the University of Essex in the laboratory of Professor Jonathan R. Dilworth. He then obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1996 from the University of Kent mentored by Professor Philip J. Blower. His postdoctoral work was with Professors Carolyn J. Anderson and Michael J. Welch at the Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM). Subsequently he joined the WUSM faculty as an Assistant Professor at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (2003- 2008). In 2008 he joined MSKCC. Professor Lewis serves on grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute and on a number editorial boards. He was the President of the World Molecular Imaging Society (2014-2015). His research interests are focused on the development of new molecular imaging agents and radiopharmaceuticals for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. He has worked on the development of small molecules targeting cancer, as well as radiolabeled peptides and Zr-89-labeled antibodies targeting disease-specific receptors and antigens; this is always with the ultimate goal of clinical translation. He has published over 150 papers, books, book chapters, and reviews in the field of molecular imaging.
Pamela K. Woodard, M.D. is Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University, where she is also the Sr. Vice Chair and Division Director of Radiological Research Facilities. In this role she provides administrative oversight to the directors of the department’s ten research facilities. These include the pre-clinical and clinical imaging PET and MRI research facilities, the Cyclotron Facility, and the Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC). She is also Head of Cardiac MR/CT, Director of the Center for Clinical Imaging Research (CCIR), Director of the Research Residency Program, and Director of the department’s imaging T32 program, TOP-TIER.
Dr. Woodard received her undergraduate degree from Duke University in 1986 and her MD from the Duke University School of Medicine in 1990. She completed her internship in Internal Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1991, and her residency in Diagnostic Radiology from Duke University in 1995.
Dr. Woodard leads her own research program and led one of the key projects on the Washington University NIH contract, Programs of Excellence in Nanotechnology (PEN) which developed a receptor-targeted radiotracer for atherosclerotic plaque imaging. This radiotracer is now in an NIH-funded R01 first-in-human trial, on which she is PI. She has over 180 manuscripts, federal and non-federal funding, several patents and has served on NIH study sections, including as a standing member on the study section Clinical and Integrative Cardiovascular Sciences (CICS) and Medical Imaging (MEDI). She is now chair of the newly formed Imaging Guided Interventions and Surgery (IGIS). She has received numerous awards for her work including being named an Academy of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research (ARBIR) Distinguished Investigator.
She is a member of many professional organizations, including the American College of Radiology (ACR), serving on the Board of Chancellors as the chair of the ACR Commission on Research, the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI), American Heart Association (AHA), Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) and Society for Cardiac Computed Tomography (SCCT). She is past president of the North American Society for Cardiovascular Imaging (NASCI). She is a Fellow of the American College of Radiology (FACR), American Heart Association (FAHA), American College of Chest Physicians (FCCP) and North American Society for Cardiovascular Imaging (FNASCI).
Norbert Pelc, Sc.D. is currently Professor of Bioengineering and Radiology and, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He received a BS from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and S.M. and Sc.D. degrees from Harvard University. Dr. Pelc was Associate Chair for Research in the Department of Radiology from 2002 to 2012 and Chair of the Department of Bioengineering from 2012 to 2017. He served on the Board of Directors of ARR from 2007 to 2016. Among his honors and awards, he is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and received the Distinguished Researcher Award from the RSNA and the Edith H. Quimby Award from the AAPM. He received a Doctor of Medicine Honoris Causa from Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Dr. Pelc served on the Advisory Council of NIBIB and on the Council of Councils of NIH. He is a Fellow of AAPM, ISMRM, SPIE, and AIMBE.