Southern California Chapter Student and Resident Awards

The Southern California Chapter of the AAPM held its annual Norm Baily Awards night at the University of California San Diego Moores Cancer Center on Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Many written abstract entries on original research were received this year in both the graduate student and resident/postdoc categories. Cash prizes were awarded to four winners.

The winning graduate student entry was submitted by Ryan Neph of UCLA titled "Deep Learning MC: Fast CNN-based Prediction of Monte Carlo Dose for MR-Guided Treatment Planning". Second place was awarded to John Ginn, also of UCLA. The first place award for residents and postdoctoral fellows was awarded to Ricardo Rademacher of Genesis Health in San Diego titled "A Compound Refractive Lens for Megavoltage Radiation Therapy". Second place was awarded to Kristin McConnell of UC San Diego.

The second annual SLAM contest was also held that night with four entrants. Entrants included Xenia Fave, Catherine Meyer, Akinyinka Omigbodun and Ricardo Rademacher. After a spirited competition judged by the audience, Ricardo also won this competition with a talk titled "We wouldn't spray paint the Mona Lisa, so why do we spray paint our patients?" He will receive a stipend from the chapter to attend the national SLAM competition in San Antonio in July.

Figure One: Norm Baily award winners: John Ginn, Ryan Neph, Education Director Steve Goetsch, Ricardo Rademacher and Kristin McConnell

Figure Two: SLAM contestants: moderator Marianne Plunkett, Ricardo Rademacher, Catherine Meyer, Xenia Fave, Akinyinka Omigbodun and secretary Varun Sehgal