Anthony Mascia, PhD

I’m a physicist specializing in radiation oncology, treatment planning, quality assurance and image guidance. I enjoy multi-disciplinary collaborations. My unique strength is building bridges across disciplines.

As an undergraduate physics major, I wanted to apply science and technology to help my community directly. During a National Science Foundation (NSF) undergraduate fellowship at a nuclear physics laboratory, I was exposed to the translational field of medical physics. My project consisted of harnessing large particle accelerators for medical use in oncology. As my career developed in this space, it was clear that this technology was best applied to pediatric patients.

The first chapter of my career was in technology development and application in the form of beam delivery systems and detectors. The next chapter of my career was in clinical commissioning and operations. My job at Cincinnati Children’s includes leading a physics team that is clinical, educational and research-focused. My research interests are in combining and translating physics with radiobiology and clinical trials and studying novel beam delivery systems.

My research includes studying ways to measure and quantify new beam delivery systems and detectors. I aim to understand how radiation biology and physics/technology can translate into better therapy methods, with an emphasis on clinical trial design. My PhD project was the design of new beam delivery systems and new radiation detectors. My research interests have expanded to include additional areas such as absolute dosimetry, ultra-high dose rate (FLASH) radiotherapy and translational radiobiological research.

I’m honored to be a routinely invited speaker at international conferences, including Flash Radiotherapy & Particle Therapy (FRPT) in Barcelona (2022), European SocieTy for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) in Copenhagen (2022), European Congress of Medical Physics (ECMP) in Dublin (2022) and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) in Washington, DC (2022).