Biography

Mi-Ae Park, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Radiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Chief of its Medical Physics section. She is a clinical medical physicist with extensive expertise in imaging physics and is certified by the American Board of Radiology in Diagnostic Medical Physics and Nuclear Medical Physics.

Originally from South Korea, Dr. Park holds a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in physics from Ewha Woman's University in Seoul, South Korea. She then obtained a doctoral degree in physics from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and transitioned to nuclear medicine physics by taking a trainee position funded by T32 NIH/NIBIB Research Training in Imaging Methods for Cancer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2002.

Before joining the faculty of UT Southwestern in 2020, Dr. Park served as Director of Nuclear Medicine Physics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Park’s leadership and clinical innovation have guided several new approaches to patient care. For example, she devised a novel collimator for brain SPECT imaging for improved precision in measuring DAT for early detection of PD and monitoring effects of therapy and the dose reduction protocol. She has worked in accurate measurement of radiotracer uptake and supported the development of new imaging biomarkers and their utilization in therapy and diagnostic imaging. Her contributions to standardizing image quality in multicenter clinical trials have been crucial for quantitative accuracy of PET images across different scanners and participating centers. It was her expertise in experimental design and analysis of imaging data that ensured the success of these trials.

In addition to authoring or co-authoring more than 60 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Park is Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics, and serves on its Board of Editors. 

She is also active in several professional organizations, including the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Korean Association of Medical Physicists in North America, American College of Radiology, American Society of Nuclear Cardiology, Radiological Society of North America, and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, which she serves as chair of the Online Learning Center, overseeing online resources and CME materials that benefit medical physicists around the world.

Education

Graduate School
Purdue University (1996)

Professional Associations/Affiliations

  • American Association of Physicists in Medicine
  • American College of Radiology
  • Korean Association of Medical Physicists in North America
  • Radiological Society of North America
  • Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging