Stephen Kry

My research is primarily directed at evaluating and improving the quality of radiation therapy. This includes evaluating institutional audit results done as part of clinical trial credentialing – understanding why institution's fail these audits and how to improve their performance. It also includes evaluations of patient-specific IMRT QA, identifying processes and methodologies that are best suited to identifying suboptimal treatment plans. In addition, I have a long standing interest in the quantification and minimization of the dose away from the treatment site during radiation therapy. This includes photons, and, when relevant, neutrons. I use both measurement techniques (including ion chambers, TLD, neutron moderators, and Bonner Spheres) as well as computational methods (primarily MCNPX). I also evaluate the impact of these doses – using risk models to estimate late effects (particularly second malignancies) from low doses of radiation. Depending on the student's interests, a tutorial with me would provide exposure to quality assurance aspects of radiation therapy. It could include measurements or work with Monte Carlo methods.