Sam Beddar

Sam Beddar is a Tenured Professor at the Univ. of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in the Department of Radiation Physics within the Division of Radiation Oncology and Chief of Research within the Department of Radiation Physics. He is also Professor Adjunct at l’Université Laval, Québec City, Canada and the Univ. of Wisconsin Madison.

Professor Beddar was born in Constantine, Algeria, and went to the University of Wisconsin – Madison, driven to study medical physics. He concentrated his research on plastic scintillation dosimetry, publishing several seminal papers on the subject, and receiving his doctorate in 1990. Pr. Beddar next joined Princess Margaret Hospital as a staff physicist. In 1993, he became an Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Following a post at Albany Medical College he accepted a position at Cleveland Clinic in 1998. In 2002, he became an Associate Professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center, joining the Brachytherapy Service. In 2005 he became Chief of the Gastrointestinal Service, focusing his clinical attention on developing 4D-CT with intravenous contrast for the liver, respiratory-gated radiation therapy for GI cancers, and in charge of the intraoperative radiation therapy program. In 2013, he was promoted to the position of Chief of Research within his Department.

The main focus of Pr. Beddar’s research laboratory has been in the field of scintillation dosimetry for radiation therapy and diagnostic imaging. He has successfully received funding for more than 20 grant proposals since joining MD Anderson cancer center in 2002, establishing an active research lab. Pr. Beddar has been PI on NIH R01s, SBIR phase I and phase II grants, and Co-investigator on a NIH P01, R21’s and project leader on a T-32 NIH grants. He has also served on many NIH Study Sections. He has collaborated with scientists from all over the world, including Canada, Australia, and France. Within the last 5 years, Pr. Beddar has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers on clinical and research-oriented topics in Medical Physics and Radiation Oncology.

Pr. Beddar is a lecturer within the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. He has served as mentor for more than 20 graduate students, 10 post-doctoral research fellows, and more than 20 clinical residents in the last 5 years. Pr. Beddar served as an Associate Editor for the Medical Physics Journal, is serving as a Guest Associate Editor for Medical Physics, Section Editor for the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics and is serving as a reviewer for several other scientific journals.