Research
Despite the widespread application of radiotherapy for cancer treatment, questions relating to the interactions of radiation with matter remain. Further, emerging treatment modalities prompt new areas of investigation. My research program involves the development and application of computational techniques and theoretical approaches to study the interactions of radiation with matter, with an emphasis on research questions relevant to radiotherapy. The approaches taken are generally theoretical and computational, often involving Monte Carlo (MC) simulations.
Over the last few years, I have been developing egs_brachy, a fast and open-source Monte Carlo simulation package for brachytherapy. Brachytherapy is a radiation treatment for cancer involving the placement of radioactive sources next to or inside a tumour. A number of studies relating to various brachytherapy treatments, including treatments for ocular, breast, lung, and prostate cancers have been performed and I have a number ongoing projects in the area, including radiobiological modelling coupled with advanced MC simulations. The egs_brachy code package is freely available to the research community via distribution on GitHub. egs_brachy development continues and it is being implemented to advance brachytherapy research and cancer treatments; no other fast, comprehensive, and accurate dose calculation tools are widely available for this treatment.
I'm interested in a variety of fundamental questions regarding the interactions of radiation with matter. My research involves investigations of radiation transport and energy deposition on cellular and subcellular levels. We are developing multi-scale modelling approaches for modelling macroscopic volumes of interest (tumours, patients) but including microscopic regions of interest (cell populations, nanoparticles for treatment). Recent research includes demonstrating the importance of microdosimetric considerations for Raman spectroscopy studies of cellular radiation response, investigations of gold nanoparticle radiation sensitization for cancer therapy. Fundamental dosimetry is also an area of interest.