At the Spring, 1999 banquet, Alfred R. Smith received the Physics Department Distinguished Alumnus Award. Dr. Smith has had a distinguished career in medical physics. He received the MS and PhD from TTU in 1966 and 1970. His advisor was Dr. Raymond Mires.

Dr. Smith is a Professor at Harvard Medical School and a Radiation Biophysicist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. He is Associate Director for the construction of a cancer treatment facility, the Northeast Proton Treatment Center, being built at MGH. This facility will opened for treatments next year with a capacity of more than 1,000 patients per year. Additionally, he is Director of Clinical Physics and Clinical Operations for the Proton Radiation Therapy Research Program at Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory. To date, more than 8,000 patients have been treated there. His interests are in the use of high energy proton beams in the treatment of adult and pediatric cancers and in the development of clinical trials to evaluate proton therapy.

From 1970-75 Dr. Smith was a Medical Physics Postdoctoral Fellow at the U. of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. There, he developed neutron cancer treatment systems at the Texas A&M Cyclotron. In 1975, he moved to the U. of New Mexico Cancer Center. There, he developed negative pi meson cancer treatments at the Los Alamos National Lab Meson Facility. In 1982, he became a Cancer Expert at the National Cancer Institute, where he developed and implemented national studies for the evaluation of heavy particle, x-ray, electron, radioscope, and radio-labeled antibody treatment planning for cancer treatments. In 1985, he moved to the U. of Pennsylvania, where he developed the first multi-leaf collimator to be routinely used in the US for highly localized x-ray cancer treatments. In 1992, he accepted his current positions.

In addition to his distinguished medical physics work, Dr. Smith is a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine and has served as their President and as the Chairman of their Board of Directors. He has also served on the Governing Board of the American College of Medical Physics and is a member of the American College of Radiology and of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

Dr. Smith's successful career clearly shows how a Physics education can be applied to the benefit of people. His national reputation in this area makes him truly deserving of our Distinguished Alumnus Award!

This page was last modified on December 21, 1999