Bentson Fellowship Alumni
Quaovi H. Sodji, MD, PhD
After his earning his BS in biochemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Dr. Sodji enrolled in the University System of Georgia MD/PhD program, where he completed his PhD in medicinal chemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and MD at the Medical College of Georgia. He subsequently completed his residency in Radiation Oncology at Stanford University, where he pursued the ABR Holman Research Pathway in the laboratory of Dr. Amato Giaccia, studying the impact of the complement system on the recruitment and cytotoxic activity of natural killer cells in the tumor microenvironment.
Dr. Sodji completed his Bentson Translational Research Fellowship in 2023 and is now a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Radiation Medicine.
Nikolai Mickevicius, PhD
Dr. Nikolai Mickevicius completed his Bentson Translational Research Fellowship in February 2022 and is now an assistant professor in the Department of Radiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Under the mentorship of Dr. Carri Glide-Hurst, director of Radiation Oncology Physics, Dr. Mickevicius’ research focused on developing novel MRI data acquisition and image reconstruction methods to extract quantitative tissue properties with high degrees of precision, repeatability, and reproducibility.
Pippa Cosper, MD, PhD
Dr. Pippa Cosper completed her Bentson Translational Research Fellowship in 2021 and now is the Director of the program, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
As a Bentson Translational Research Fellow, Dr. Cosper studied how chromosomal instability affects a cancer cell’s response to radiation treatment in order to determine which patients may be resistant to treatment and to define the mechanisms underlying this treatment resistance with the hope of developing novel therapeutic interventions to improve patient outcomes. Her work as a fellow focused primarily on head and neck cancer. She stratified analyses for HPV status to evaluate what impact this tumor-causing virus may have on chromosomal instability.
Awards
- American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Young Investigator Award
- Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Research Fellow Grant
- Scholar-in-Training Travel Award at the RADRES Annual Meeting
- National Institutes of Health (NIH) K08 Career Development Award
Ravi Patel, MD, PhD
Dr. Ravi Patel completed his Bentson Translational Research Fellowship in 2020 and now is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, where he runs his own lab.
As a Bentson Translational Research Fellow, Dr. Patel worked on two cancer immunotherapy projects. One focused on evaluating whether response to immunotherapies may be improved through the use of molecular targeted radionuclide therapeutics. The other focused on the development and testing of a novel nanoparticle for stimulating an anti-cancer immune response in conjunction with external beam radiation therapy. During his time in the department, he earned several grants, had multiple papers accepted, and supervised a group of undergraduate researchers.
Awards
- American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Young Investigator Award, 2018
- National Institutes of Health (NIH) K-award
- Clinical Fellow Award. Annual Immono-Oncology Young Investigators’ Forum, 2018
- RNSA Roentgen Resident Research Award, 2017
Kathryn Mittauer, PhD
Dr. Kathryn Mittauer completed her Bentson Translational Research Fellowship in 2019 and now is a medical physicist and assistant professor at Miami Cancer Institute, Florida International University.
As a Bentson Translational Research Fellow, Dr. Mittauer completed research that utilized a novel swine model in combination with the precision of MR-guided adaptive radiotherapy to evaluate the maximum tolerated dose to the duodenum. The results of her studies potentially will allow for delivery of additional radiation dose to patients with localized pancreatic cancer, which may confer a survival benefit.
Awards
- Early Career Medical Physics Scholar Award, Winter
- Institute of Medical Physics Meeting, 2018
- Best of Quality Assurance Dosimetry Symposium, Sun
- Nuclear Quality Assurance Dosimetry Symposium, 2018