Abstract: Dr. Li will introduce this sub field of physics - Medical Physics and share her experience transitioning from an academic department to a community clinic. She will then focus on what Medical Physics is, the sub-fields, various modalities and research opportunities involved. The outline of the talk will start with an overview of the field and the career, educational pathways and end with her own journey from being a physicist in lab to a physicist in clinic. She will also try to give a picture of the day-to-day life of a therapeutic medical physicist.
Bio: Dr. Li is a board-certified medical physicist and has been working at the Newton Wellesley Hospital in Newton, MA since 2022. She is currently a clinical physicist and actively working on the research projects with a focus on patient outcome. Prior to her current employment, she worked at Saint Vincent Hospital (SVH) in Worcester, MA. Dr. Li earned a Ph.D. in condensed matter physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2014. From 2014 through 2018, she was a physics lecturer at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. From 2018 through 2021, she first finished a Medical Physics certificate program at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA and then completed her residency at Rutgers University/Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.