Cheng Yu, Ph.D.
Professor
Dr. Yu is a physicist who specializes in radiosurgery. He completed his undergraduate studies in physics in China before coming to the United States to earn his doctorate in solid state physics at Michigan Technological University. He subsequently commenced a post-doctorate fellowship in radiation oncology at the University of Chicago. He plays an integral role in treatment planning and machine calibrations for radiation therapy, and supervises quality assurance and clinical practices from the staff medical physicists, dosimetrists, radiation therapists and other technologists. His extensive experience in stereotactic radiosurgery includes thousands of cases involving tumors, vascular malformations, pain syndromes and epilepsy.
Dr. Yu's primary research interests at USC focus on comparative dosimetry of radiosurgery modalities such as linac-based, Gamma Knife® and CyberKnife® radiosurgery systems. He is the author or co-author of 49 peer-reviewed scientific papers, nearly 100 scientific abstracts and meeting presentations, and 10 chapters in technical books. Dr. Yu served as a member of AAPM Task Group 135, Quality Assurance for Robotic Radiosurgery, from 2006 to 2010.
Jonathan Kin Ha, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dr. Ha is an ABR-certified physicist and an assistant professor at USC. He received his bachelor’s degree in applied physics and economics from the California Institute of Technology, and his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His doctoral thesis centered on the investigation of magneto-elastic couplings in nano-ultra thin magnetic films. After completing his Ph.D. he went to Europe to continue his research in the field of thin-film magnetism, working at various academic institutions in the Netherlands, Germany, and France. In 2006, he returned to the United States to work with Professor Cedric Yu at the University of Maryland for radiation therapy physics research. His research interests include IGRT, grid therapy, and radiobiological modeling.
Audrey Zhuang, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dr. Zhuang joined the USC Department of Radiation Oncology in September 2009. An ABR-certified physicist, she received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Instrumentation from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China in 1999 and 2001, and earned her doctorate in Biomedical Engineering from UCLA in 2006. Her dissertation project focused on developing a Model-based Level Set algorithm for segmenting MRI brain images. After completing her PhD, Dr. Zhuang worked as a post-doc researcher in the radiation physics department at City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, CA, and at City of Hope’s Beckman Research Institute, where she focused on image-guided radiotherapy and intensity modulated radiotherapy using the Tomotherapy system. Dr. Zhuang's research interests include the investigation of image processing methods in radiation therapy applications.
Hyman Bernstein, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dr. Bernstein is a board certified and tenured assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology. He received his B.A. and M.S. degrees in physics from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and earned his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Southern California.
He has a great number of years experience in clinical medical physics at the USC Departments of Radiology and Radiation Oncology, and has lectured and educated USC residents on the physics of diagnostic radiology and radiation oncology for many, many years.
Bei Liu, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dr. Liu received his bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), and his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Iowa State University. After completing his Ph.D., he was a lead software engineer at Motorola Inc., and worked as a research scientist in medical physics at the University of Chicago. Dr. Liu finished his clinical training in radiation oncology physics at the Medical Center of University of Maryland, and joined University of Southern California in 2008.
His research interests are image-guided radiation therapy, statistical analysis of medical images, receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) and brachytherapy.
Sue Zhou, M.S.
Assistant Professor
Ms. Zhou received her medical physics degree from the University of Missouri, and is ABR-certified. She is a licensed medical physicist in both California and Texas and has been working in the field of radiation therapy for 18 years. She is a member of several professional and scientific organizations including the American Society for Radiation Oncology, the American Association of Medical Physicists, and the American Brachytherapy Society. Her professional interests include brachyhtherapy, partial breast irradiation, and prostate seed implants. As part of her personal and professional philosophy, Ms. Zhou believes that the patient always comes first. She is married and has two children in college.
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