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Editorial
Guest Editorial Celebrating the 90th birthday of Dr. Moses Greenfield
We published a review of the electronic book
"Review of Radiation Oncology Physics: A Handbook for Teachers and
Students", Edited by Ervin B. Podgorsak, PhD. in the JACMP Vol 5,
Issue 3, 2004. A slightly revised version of this 695 page book is
available without cost to anyone with web access. This new IAEA
version is available on the web site:
www.medphys.mcgill.ca/academic/IAEAsyllabus.pdf
It
is with great pleasure I welcome as a Guest Editorial the following
biography of Moses Greenfield by Dr. Amos Norman. This Fall
2005 issue of the JACMP is dedicated to Dr. Greenfield, and contains
contributions from several of his former students.
Michael D. Mills, PhD
MOSES A. GREENFIELD
Moses Greenfield was born in New York City on 8
March 1915. He earned a B.S. degree in physics from City College of
New York where he also was awarded the Belden Medal in mathematics.
In 1937 he received an M.S. degree in physics from New York
University. and completed there all the requirements for the Ph.D.
except the dissertation, He accepted an appointment as a Research
Physicist during World War II at the Bureau of Ships, United States
Navy, in Washington D.C. where, with others, he showed that a faulty
design was responsible for the tendency of Liberty Ships to
suddenly split in two. While working there he also was able, with
the guidance of George Gamow, to write his Ph.D. dissertation on
"The Problem of Energy Production in Red Giants" and was awarded the
degree in 1941.
He left the Navy
in 1946 for California and a position as a consultant for North
American Aviation in Stellar Space Research. Then in 1948 he
accepted an appointment as Associate Professor in the Department of
Radiology in the new medical school under construction at the
University of California, Los Angeles. He spent his entire career at
UCLA since then, moving up in due course to Professor and Professor
Emeritus. Early in his career of teaching, research and public
service, in 1956, he founded with Amos Norman a graduate program in
Medical Physics and served for many years as its director. This
program, was later renamed the Interdepartmental Graduate Program in
Biomedical Physics to reflect its large expansion to include the
study and application of the many new devices - CT and Ultrasound
Scanners, PET, SPECT and MRI - and procedures - IMRT, for example -
made possible by the rapid evolution of computers.
This program, which to date has
granted some 266 M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, is Professor Greenfield's
major contribution to the Medical Physics Profession.
Undoubtedly, this contribution, together with his many published
papers in the field and, notably, the work with his graduate
students and post docs on the measurement of bone density,
influenced the American Association of Physicists in Medicine to
give him its highest praise, the William D. Coolidge Award. There is
every reason to expect that the next several decades will witness as
many innovations in the practice of medical physics as in the past
half century during which the slide rule was replaced by the
computer. A reasonable guess is that it will witness more machine
analysis of images and the incorporation of biological factors
unique to each patient into radiation therapy treatment planning.
The Biomedical Physics Graduate Program at UCLA is likely to
flourish, and remain an enduring tribute to Professor Greenfield's
leadership.
At 90 Moe Greenfield
continues to attend and actively participate in meetings of the
Board of the Emeriti Association and of the Faculty of the
Biomedical Physics Program. He can be found frequently dining with
his wife Bella, a mathematician, and friends at the UCLA Faculty
Center where the conversation often turns to discussion of his
children, stepchildren and 10 grandchildren (so far). I look forward
to celebrating his one hundredth birthday in 2015 with his family,
friends and colleagues.
Amos Norman
The Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics
| Editor-in-Chief | Michael D. Mills |
| Deputy Editor-in-Chief | Timothy D. Solberg |
| Associate Editor-at-Large | Richard Stark |
| Radiation Oncology Physics | Nzhde Agazaryan, B. Gino Fallone |
| John Gibbons, Michael Herman | |
| Janelle Molloy, Matthew Podgorsak | |
| Nikos Papanikolaou | |
| Mehrdad Sarfaraz, Lu Wang | |
| Medical Imaging | William Pavlicek |
| Radiation Measurements | Larry DeWerd |
| Radiation Protection & Regulations | James Deye |
| Nonionizing Topics | Bhudatt Paliwal |
| Other Topics | Timothy Solberg |
| Book/Media Reviews | James Smathers |
| Editorials | John Horton |
| Proofreader | Heather Shand |
| Copy Editor | Betty R. Robinson |
| Layout Editor | Laura Shand |
| Manuscript Manager | Patricia Walker |