Daniel A. Alexander

Overview

Professor Alexander is a medical physicist with a passion for quality improvement in radiation therapy. His research has focused on the development of Cherenkov imaging and scintillation-based dosimetry measurements, and he is an active collaborator on these efforts in the Optics in Medicine lab at Thayer School of Engineering. His clinical interests include workflow standardization, surface-guided radiation therapy, knowledge-based planning, and stereotactic radiation therapy planning. He is also active in automating radiation oncology workflows to improve efficiency and standardization in clinical workflows by leveraging AI and scripting tools. As a core faculty member and alum of the medical physics graduate program, as well as associate director of the medical physics residency program, he is passionate about training the next generation of clinical physicists, both at the graduate and resident levels.

Research Interests

Cherenkov and scintillation imaging in radiation therapy; artificial intelligence and automation applications in radiation therapy; stereotactic radiation therapy

Education

• BS, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institue 2017
• MS, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institue 2017
• PhD, Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth 2022

Professional Activities

• Member, American Association of Physicists in Medicine

Research Projects

• Cerenkov imaging in radiation therapy

  Cerenkov imaging in radiation therapy

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• Scintillation dosimetry for quality assurance in radiotherapy

  Scintillation dosimetry for quality assurance in radiotherapy

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Selected Publications

• Decker SM, Andreozzi JM, Hernandez D, Alexander DA, Wickramasinghe V, Hachadorian RL, Oraiqat IM, Chen E, Washington IR, Gui J, Zhang R, Jarvis LA, Bruza P, Gladstone DJ, Pogue BW. (2025) "Improving Cherenkov-based radiotherapy dose estimates in diverse patient populations via skin luminance imaging." Physics in Medicine and Biology. 70(15): 10.1088/1361-6560/aded68.
• Liu X, Alexander DA, Kayser D, Speck T, Wiersma RD. (2025) "A novel SGRT system for real-time optical surface tracking or guidance." Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics. 26(7): e70138. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC12256682.
• Alexander DA, Majji S, Jermyn M, Byrd BK, Bruza P, Li T, Zhu TC. (2023) "Characterization of Cherenkov imaging parameters and positional constraints on an O-ring linear accelerator." Physics in Medicine and Biology. 68(20): 10.1088/1361-6560/acfdf2. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10693929.
• Wickramasinghe VA, Decker SM, Streeter SS, Sloop AM, Petusseau AF, Alexander DA, Bruza P, Gladstone DJ, Zhang R, Pogue BW. (2023) "Color-resolved Cherenkov imaging allows for differential signal detection in blood and melanin content." Journal of Biomedical Optics. 28(3): 036005. Epub 2023 Mar 13. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10008915.
• Zhu Y, Alexander DA, Miao T, Maity A, Plastaras JP, Paydar I, LaRiviere M, Pogue BW, Zhu TC. (2023) "Evaluation of the cumulative Cherenkov converted dose on TSET patients with multiple Cherenkov cameras." Proceedings of SPIE, International Society for Optics and Photonics. 12359: 10.1117/12.2651177. Epub 2023 Mar 14. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10136935.
• Alexander DA, Certa O, Haertter A, Li T, Taunk N, Zhu TC. (2023) "Comparison of surface dose during whole breast radiation therapy on Halcyon and TrueBeam using Cherenkov imaging." Proceedings of SPIE, International Society for Optics and Photonics. 12371: 10.1117/12.2652588. Epub 2023 Mar 6. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10128868.
• Hunt B, Gill GS, Alexander DA, Streeter SS, Gladstone DJ, Russo GA, Zaki BI, Pogue BW, Zhang R. (2023) "Fast deformable image registration for real-time target tracking during radiation therapy using cine MRI and deep learning." International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics. 115(4): 983–993. Epub 2022 Oct 26.
• Chen E, Pogue BW, Bruza P, Alexander DA, Andino NL, Decker SM, Gaudet DM, Gladstone DJ, Lake MJ, Levene SR, Michelson JL, Robinson HL, Stallings DN, Starkey JE, Jarvis LA. (2022) "Clinical implementation of the first Cherenkov imaging system in a community-based hospital." Technical Innovations & Patient Support in Radiation Oncology. 24: 1–5. eCollection 2022 Dec. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9472078.
• Decker SM, Alexander DA, Bruza P, Zhang R, Chen E, Jarvis LA, Gladstone DJ, Pogue BW. (2022) "Performance comparison of quantitative metrics for analysis of in vivo Cherenkov imaging incident detection during radiotherapy." British Journal of Radiology. 95(1137): 20211346. Epub 2022 Jul 27. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10996952.
• Alexander DA, Decker SM, Jermyn M, Bruza P, Zhang R, Chen E, McGlynn TL, Rosselot RA, Lee J, Rose ML, Williams BB, Pogue BW, Gladstone DJ, Jarvis LA. (2023) "One year of clinic-wide Cherenkov imaging for discovery of quality improvement opportunities in radiation therapy." Practical Radiation Oncology. 13(1): 71–81. Epub 2022 Jun 29. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10984217.
• Ramish Ashraf M, Farwell C, Alexander DA, Zhang R, Gladstone DJ, Pogue BW, Bruza P. (2022) "3D dose delivery QA using couch and gantry mounted cameras." Journal of Physics: Conference Series. 2167(1): 012027. doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/2167/1/012027.
• Alexander DA, Jermyn M, Bruza P, Zhang R, Chen E, Decker SM, McGlynn TL, Rosselot RA, Ba JL, Rose ML, Williams BB, Pogue BW, Gladstone DJ, Jarvis LA. (2021) "Retrospective evaluation of an always-on Cherenkov imaging system for radiotherapy quality improvement." arXiv.