Congratulations: Dr. Jacob Van Dyk named 2022 Coolidge Gold Medal Recipient
I am delighted to announce that Emeritus Professor Jacob (“Jake”) Van Dyk is the recipient of the 2022 Coolidge Gold Medal from the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM). This is the AAPM’s top honour for an “eminent career in medical physics”.
As a medical physicist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (1971-1995) and London Regional Cancer Program (LRCP,1995-2010), his steadfast dedication to all aspects of the profession – clinically, scientifically, and educationally – has been recognized at national and international levels. Jake was appointed to the Department of Oncology at Western, with a cross appointment in Medical Biophysics. At mid-career, Jake took on many leadership roles with medical physics organizations, Cancer Care Ontario (now Ontario Health), research agencies, and organized major conferences. Jake has lectured at conferences and courses in over 40 countries. He has been a consultant to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organization (WHO). He is defining the needs of lower income countries for training programs in clinical physics and acquisition of major equipment to upgrade access and quality of radiotherapy services offered to cancer patients globally.
He is the founder of Medical Physics for World Benefit (www.mpwb.org) aimed at improving world access to radiotherapy, sharing learning resources, and assisting countries in expanding their facilities.
Jake has been a role model as a dedicated highly productive clinical physicist for a generation of younger physicists. He led developments in radiation dosimetry, CT-based radiotherapy planning, and radiobiology studies with seminal research on radiation-induced lung damage. He was involved in the implementation of adaptive intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) at LRCP, including the acquisition of one of the first tomotherapy machines. His publication record has an h-index of 56 with over 11,000 citations – a remarkable productivity from an individual holding a master’s degree for most of his career. This exceptional performance was recognized by an honorary degree of Doctor Science (D.Sc.), awarded at Western’s MD Convocation ceremony in 2014. In addition to scientific productivity, Jake has developed and licensed several QUASAR devices for quality assurance of radiotherapy procedures, manufactured by Modus Medical Devices located in London, Ontario.
Jake is a prolific writer and editor. He has produced a set of four ‘big’ reference books on The
Modern Technology of Radiation Oncology available on office bookshelves and libraries around the world. His writing ‘habit’ has continued well past his ‘retirement’ date; another book entitled True Tales of Medical Physics is aimed at a public readership and will soon be published (Spring 2022).
The Coolidge award is a most appropriate tribute to Professor Van Dyk. Please join me in congratulating him (vandyk@uwo.ca).
Jerry Battista, PhD, FCCPM, FAAPM
Professor Emeritus, Departments of Oncology and Medical Biophysics
Western University
