AMPA is pleased to announce the winners of the 2026 Travel Awards:

Student Winners ($750)

Mackenzie Branch Whitehead, Validation of an in-house Syed-Neblett library model to enable interstitial MRI-only gynecological brachytherapy at 3T, European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology 2026, Girona, Spain

Ali Islam, Strategic automation for gynecological brachytherapy planning: Optimizer enhanced deep learning and distance-based techniques, AAPM | COMP 2026, Vancouver, BC

Gabrielle Lee, Development of a 3D slicer extension for MR-based gel dosimetry analysis, International Conference on 3D Dosimetry 2026, Caen, France

Leo Remillard, Breaking the frequency limit: The first quadrature RF volume head coil for 10.5T MRI, AAPM | COMP 2026, Vancouver, BC (travel costs fully covered by other sources)

Physicist Winners ($1,500)

Derek Liu, Medical physics guidelines for clinical software, scripts and spreadsheets, AAPM | COMP 2026, Vancouver, BC

Nathan Murtha, Reducing treatment time in single-target stereotactic radiosurgery with Varian Identify, ISRS 2025, Sydney, Australia

Congratulations to all of the winners!

AMPA is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 Travel Awards:

Student Winners ($750)

Gawon Han, PCA-based future frame prediction for real-time MRI-guided radiotherapy, AAPM 2025, Washington, DC

Benjamin Schultz, Comparison of MLC tracking latency under various clinical conditions on Alberta Linac-MR, COMP 2025, London, ON

Mark Wright, A Hybrid-PCA Based Accelerated MR Method for Real-Time Target Tracking and Motion Management, AAPM 2025, Washington, DC

Physicist Winners ($1,500)

Clara Fallone, A method for MRI-only interstitial needle reconstruction of the Syed-Neblett applicator in gynecological brachytherapy, ESMRMB 2025, Marseilles, France

Ali Golestani, Dynamic autocorrelation as a tool to measure time-dependent changes in neuronal time-scale along the hippocampus axis during resting-state, ISMRM 2025, Honolulu, HI

Congratulations to all of the winners!

AMPA is now accepting applications for both the student and physicist travel awards for 2024.

There are 3 student travel awards valued at $750. The application deadline for these is July 31, 2024.

There are 2 physicist travel awards valued at $1,500 each. The application deadline for these is August 30, 2024. Please note that medical physics residents are now eligible for the physicist awards!

Please click the applicable button below for more information.

AMPA is now accepting applications for both the student and physicist travel awards for 2023. There are 3 student awards valued at $750 each and 2 physicist awards valued at $1,500 each. For more information on the awards and application process, see the appropriate application form below. The deadline for applications is September 18, 2023.

AMPA is happy to announce that AMPA student members Kailyn Stenhouse (PhD program) and Jacob Groeneveld (MSc program), both from the medical physics graduate program at the University of Calgary, have been selected as the winners of the 2022 AMPA Student Travel Awards. 

Ms. Stenhouse was successful with her application covering two abstracts titled "Results of a Prospective Applicator and Hybrid Interstitial Needle Selection Machine Learning Model for High-Dose-Rate Cervical Brachytherapy" and "Comparison of Bayesian Networks and Conventional Machine Learning Techniques for Cystitis Prediction in Cervical Cancer Patients​", which were presented at the Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists (COMP) Annual Scientific Meeting 2022. 

Mr. Groeneveld was successful with his application titled "Monte-Carlo simulation of electron beam collimation using parallel magnetic fields​" which was also presented at the COMP Annual Scientific Meeting 2022. 
 
This year AMPA again received numerous excellent applications. Their high quality made selecting the winners a difficult task, yet evidences the remarkable work undertaken by our AMPA student members. The AMPA directors congratulate all student applicants, and especially our 2022 winners.

AMPA is pleased to announce that AMPA student members Lingyue Sun (PhD program), Rebecca Frederick (PhD program) and Joseph Madamesila (MSc program), from medical physics graduate program at the University of Calgary, have been selected as the winners of the 2021 AMPA Student Travel Awards. 

Ms. Sun was successful with her application titled "Predictive Factors of Biochemical Failure Free Survival for Prostate Cancer Patients after External Beam Radiation Therapy" and "Using machine learning algorithms to predict biochemical failure after external beam radiotherapy" which were presented at COMP Annual Meeting 2021. 

Ms. Frederick was successful with her application titled "Characterizing Six Degrees of Freedom Treatment Couch Deflections During Extended Field Treatments" which was presented at the COMP Annual Scientific Meeting 2021. 

Mr. Madamesila was successful with his application titled "Characterizing Changes in Apparent Diffusion Coefficients of Brain Metastasis Before and After Stereotactic Radiosurgery" which was presented at the COMP Annual Scientific Meeting 2021. 
 
Once again, AMPA received several excellent applications, the quality of which reflects very well on the work being produced by our AMPA student members. The AMPA directors congratulate all of the student applicants as well as our 2021 winners.

AMPA is pleased to announce that Braden Chow of the University of Alberta Medical Physics program has been selected as the winner of the 2020 AMPA Student Travel Award. 

Mr. Chow was successful with his application titled "In vitro determination of radiobiological parameter values used in cervical cancer brachytherapy​" which he presented at the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology & Oncology (ESTRO) Congress 2020 virtually on November 30, 2020

AMPA is also pleased to announce that Dr. Matt Larocque of the University of Alberta Medical Physics department has been selected as the winner of the 2020 AMPA Physicist Award. 

Dr. Larocque was successful with his application to present on "Conformal Ocular Brachytherapy in Alberta" at the 2020 WESCAN Medical Physics Conference in Victoria, BC on March 14, 2020.
 
AMPA congratulates the winners of this year's awards; the quality of these presentations reflects very well on the work being produced by our AMPA physicists and student members.

​AMPA is pleased to announce that Ray Yang of the University of Alberta and Amy Frederick of the University of Calgary medical physics programs have been selected as the winners of the 2019 AMPA Student Travel Awards. 

Mr Yang was successful with his application titled "Deterministic MRIgRT Patient Dose Calculation Using Bulk-Density Assigned CT AND A Spectral Analysis of a Linear Streamline Upwind Petrov Galerkin Scheme for the Linear Boltzmann Transport Equation with Magnetic Field AND Developing a Source Model for the Elekta Unity MR-Linac Using a Grid-Based Boltzmann Solver" which will be presented at AAPM Annual Meeting 2019 in San Antonio, TX. 

Ms. Frederick was successful with her application for titled "Dosimetric Impact of Set-up Errors and Anatomy Changes in CBCT-Guided Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation: Towards Evidence-Based Set-up Margins AND The Pursuit of Paperless: a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis of the Transition to Paperless Medical Physics Quality Assurance for Linear Accelerators" which will be presented at the COMP Annual Scientific Meeting 2019 in Kelowna, BC. 
 
Once again, AMPA received several excellent applications, the quality of which reflects very well on the work being produced by our AMPA student members.  On behalf of AMPA, I would like to congratulate all of the student applicants as well as our 2019 winners.

​As many of you know, WesCan was rebooted in 2019 (http://wescan.org/). The Cross Cancer Institute hosted the event in late March, which was a great success in bringing together physicists across Canada. To support WesCan in 2019 and in the future, the AMPA Directors created the WesCan Physicist Award to encourage Alberta physicists in taking an active role in the future of WesCan. For 2019, the award was given to Dr. Jonatan Snir, who gave a presentation on Power Doppler ultrasound for improved intraoperative needle tip visualization during prostate brachytherapy. As we move towards WesCan 2020 in Victoria, BC, the AMPA Directors are happy to continue supporting this initiative

​AMPA is pleased to announce that Clara Fallone of the University of Alberta and Svetlana Kuznetsova  of the University of Calgary medical physics programs have been selected as the winners of the 2018 AMPA Student Travel Awards. 

Ms. Fallone was successful with her application titled "Assessing the Glycerol Proton Contamination on Fat Unsaturation Quantification Using Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy at 3 T" which was given an oral presentation at AAPM Annual Meeting 2018 in Nashville, TN. 

Ms. Kuznetsova was successful with her application for titled "Performance Comparison Between Three Different Image Fusion Methods For The Registration Of Liver Region In Planning CT And Post Radiation Therapy PrimovistTM Enhanced MRI" which was given an oral presentation at CARO-COMP-CAMRT joint ASM in Montreal QC, September 12-15, 2018. 
 
Once again, AMPA received several excellent applications, the quality of which reflects very well on the work being produced by our AMPA student members.  On behalf of AMPA, I would like to congratulate all of the student applicants as well as our 2018 winners.