University of Virginia Health System

Dr. Benedict is the Director of Radiological Physics and the Program Director for the Clinical Physics Residency Program. The essential responsibility of the chief medical physicist’s clinical practice is to assure the safe and effective delivery of patient radiation treatments as prescribed by the Radiation Oncology physician, and to develop, accept, and commission new technology for introduction into clinical service. Dr. Benedict’s clinical and research interests include intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), the physics of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), and the image guidance for radiosurgery. He also provides instruction in the area of radiological physics to residents and radiation therapist students.

Ms. Isin is a medical physicist in the Department of Radiation Oncology. The essential responsibility of the medical physicist’s clinical practice is to assure the safe and effective delivery of patient radiation treatments as prescribed by the Radiation Oncology physician. In an effort to further the clinical goals of the department, Ms. Isin provides routine primary clinical physics duties for the department’s Varian treatment machine which includes performing patient treatment plan checks and weekly chart checks. This is a quality assurance measure that is performed to insure that patients receive the correct amount of radiation as prescribed by the Radiation Oncology physician. She also provides clinical physics duties for Augusta Medical Center which includes performing plan checks and weekly chart checks. 

Dr. Libby is a medical physicist in the Department of Radiation Oncology. The essential responsibility of the medical physicist’s clinical practice is to assure the safe and effective delivery of patient radiation treatments as prescribed by the Radiation Oncology physician. Dr. Libby assists the radiation oncology physician with patient brachytherapy treatments. Brachytherapy treatments are a form of radiation treatment where “seeds” containing radioactive material are inserted into the patient’s tumor site. He monitors the level of radiation being administered to the patient making sure that the treatment is delivered according to the treatment plan requested by the physician.

Dr. Sheng is a medical physicist in the Department of Radiation Oncology. The essential responsibility of the medical physicist’s clinical practice is to assure the safe and effective delivery of patient radiation treatments as prescribed by the Radiation Oncology physician. Dr. Sheng is actively involved in on-going research projects in the area of radiation injury and protection in the treatment of lung tumors as well as discovering techniques to better manage the motion in lung tumor radiation treatments.

Dr. Van Ausdal is a medical physicist in the Department of Radiation Oncology. The essential responsibility of the medical physicist’s clinical practice is to assure the safe and effective delivery of patient radiation treatments as prescribed by the Radiation Oncology physician. In an effort to further the clinical goals of the department, Dr. Van Ausdal provides assistance in the implementation of new technologies - turning the results of medical research into novel patient treatment options. He provides downtime supervision for the TomoTherapy treatment machine and performs quality assurance checks which help to insure the accurate delivery of radiation for each patient treatment. He also furthers the teaching goals of the department by providing brachytherapy treatment instruction to residents and radiation therapy students.

Dr. Wijesooriya joined the Department of Radiation Oncology Clinical Physics faculty in February 2008. She received her PhD in Nuclear Physics for research work at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. Upon receiving her PhD she joined Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago as a post doctoral researcher to work on more Nuclear Physics experiments. In 2003 she joined VCU Medical Physics as a post doctoral fellow to perform 4D radiotherapy research. From 2006 - 2008 she worked as a Clinical Assistant Professor at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. At UVA, Dr. Wijesooriya is actively involved in national clinical trial protocols. She is also involved in clinical and research projects that attempts to better manage organ motion that occur during radiation treatment.

Dr. Yang is a medical physicist in the Department of Radiation Oncology. The essential responsibility of the medical physicist’s clinical practice is to assure the safe and effective delivery of patient radiation treatments as prescribed by the Radiation Oncology physician. Dr. Yang is actively involved in nanotechnology and how it applies to radiation therapy and cell biology. Nanotechnology is the creation and utilization of materials, devices and systems through the control of matter on the nanometer length scale, i.e. at the level of atoms, molecules and supramolecular structures. These technologies have been applied to improve the efficacy of cancer treatment. My interest is to identify the potential novel nanomaterials and apply them to radiation therapy. One project in our group is to utilize light emitting nanoparticle conjugated with a photodynamic drug to radio-sensitize cancer cells so that when radiation is delivered with the novel nanoparticle conjugate, tumor cells can be killed more efficiently than that when radiation is delivered alone.