David Jaffray
  • Chief Digital & Technology Officer, MD Anderson Cancer Centre

David Jaffray, PhD, ABMP

Dr. David Jaffray graduated from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada with a B.Sc. in Physics (Hons.) in 1988 and completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario in 1994. Following graduation, he took a position as Staff Physicist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, Michigan where he instigated a direction of research that garnered funding from the NIH and from congressionally-directed funding programs. Dr. Jaffray became a Board Certified Medical Physicist (ABMP – Radiation Oncology) in 1999.

In 2002, Dr. Jaffray joined the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, Ontario as Head of Radiation Physics and a Senior Scientist within the Ontario Cancer Institute. Dr. Jaffray holds the Fidani Chair in Radiation Physics and is a principal in the STTARR Innovation Centre of the University Health Network. He is appointed as a Professor in the Departments of Radiation Oncology, Medical Biophysics, and Institute for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. His primary area of research over the past 10 years has been in the development and application of image-guided radiation therapy. He has over 5 patents issued and several licensed, including, kilovoltage cone-beam computed tomography for image-guided radiation therapy. Dr. Jaffray has in excess of 120 peer-reviewed publications in the field, in excess of 100 invited lectures, and holds numerous peer-review and industry sponsored research grants. He sits on numerous scientific and research boards and has contributed to the NIH and CIHR grant review process for several years. He is a member at large of the Science Council of the AAPM and has an active teaching role in workshops and annual meeting of the American Society of Therapeutic Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). He has an active interest in commercialization and led the development of a variety of commercial products including software and hardware for QA and the development of small animal irradiator systems for basic research. He has successfully supervised over 20 graduate students and fellows.

Dr. Jaffray has won each of the major prizes in the field of the medical physics, including, the Sylvia Sorkin-Greenfield Award, The Farrington Daniels Award, and the Sylvia Fedoruk Award. In 2004, Dr. Jaffray was identified as one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 and was recognized by The University of Western Ontario with their Young Alumni Award. His current research interests focus on the development of novel approaches of targeting and applying radiation therapy and translating these advances to clinical practice.