Biophysical Science and Medical Physics

The department is made up of faculty members with primary appointments in departments that include radiology, physics, engineering, computer science, physiology, dentistry, genetics, and biochemistry.

In addition to providing services in areas such as radiation safety and quality assurance, the department is active in research and provides graduate level training in the biophysical sciences and medical physics. Other educational responsibilities include preparing medical residents for the American Board of Radiology certification exam.

Graduate Program in Biophysical Sciences and Medical Physics

The department offers programs that lead to the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. Students concentrate in research areas that include molecular biophysics, medical imaging, magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy, radiobiology, radiation therapy physics, and mathematical biophysics and computation. A limited number of students prepare for employment as hospital-based medical physicists through a program that includes opportunities for course work, laboratories, and directed study to provide experience in areas such as purchase specification, acceptance testing, quality assurance, and radiation safety. The majority of students prepare for research careers in the basic sciences.

Candidates for the M.S. degree may pursue either thesis or nonthesis plans of study. The thesis plan is considered suitable for students with full-time employment if their thesis can be related to their work assignments. The nonthesis plan is more suitable for students planning to work in government or hospital settings where technical knowledge is more germane than research experience. Students in the nonthesis plan perform a research project under the direction of a faculty member and present the work to their faculty committee in an oral exam.

Candidates for the Ph.D. take preliminary written exams at the end of the first year of study or as soon as possible after completing the core course sequence--topics in physics for medicine and biology. An oral preliminary exam focuses on the plan for thesis research and the student's grasp of related information and is taken by the fall of the third year of full-time registration or its equivalent.

The program reports to the Basic Science Policy and Review Council of the Graduate School and receives a small amount of funding in the form of block grants from the Graduate School. However, graduate student support is almost exclusively obtained through grants and contracts held by the member faculty.

For specific graduate program information, contact:

E. Russell Ritenour, Ph.D., Director, Professor
University of Minnesota School of Medicine
Department of Radiology, Box 292 MMC
420 Delaware Street SE
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
Telephone: 612-626-0131
Fax: 612-626-1951
Electronic mail: riten001@umn.edu

Application may be accomplished on-line at:
http://www.grad.umn.edu/application.html

Additional information concerning admissions may be found at:
http://www.grad.umn.edu/admissions/

Radiation Protection