UPSTATE NEW YORK ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICIST IN MEDICINE (UNYAPM) CHAPTER REPORT Lalith K. Kumaraswamy, PhD, Buffalo, NY

The Upstate New York chapter of AAPM (UNYAPM) held its semi-annual meeting on April 21st, 2017 at the SWIFT Auditorium, Buffalo General Hospital, Buffalo, NY. The UNYAMP consists of members from all across the upstate New York region, from Buffalo to Albany. The meeting started with an invited presentation by Paul Naine from Elekta. As radiation therapy continues to evolve, image guidance plays a crucial role in targeting tumors precisely to maximize tumor kill while protecting surrounding healthy tissue. Mr. Naine talked about the emergence of MR IGRT and the future of image guided radiotherapy, which drew much interest from both therapeutic and diagnostic physicists in the audience.

The ninth annual Young Investigators Competition was then held, with eight students from Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Toshiba Stroke and Vascular Research Center, and the University at Albany participating. The clinical and research work presented by the young investigators were excellent with good impact in the field of Medical Physics.The first prize was awarded to Alexander Podgorsak, who was selected by four faculty judges for his impressive presentation on Implementation of basis material decomposition in neurovascular intervention. Dr. Laila Hassan received the second prize for presenting her work titled "Coherent scatter imaging Monte Carlo simulation". The third price was awarded to Tianjun Ma for his work on "Fiducial marker detectability improvement in EPID during radiation therapy treatment". Dr. Lalith Kumaraswamy, President of UNYAPM, presented the awards to the winners of the Young investigator competition.

The closing session was an invited talk by Dr. Matthew Podgorsak, who is the current Trustee of the American Board of Radiology for the Therapy Medical Physics. Dr. Podgorsak outlined the new ABR MOC process including the new Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA) program. His talk was well received, as was evident from several key discussions initiated by the audience during his presentation.

The next chapter meeting is scheduled for October 2017 and non-members are welcome to attend. Details can be obtained from the chapter secretary, Vikas Patel and the chapter website.

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