Employee spotlight: NRC student Victoria Howard wins coveted national award

Against the odds

Victoria Howard, a Carleton University MSc student working with the medical and dosimetry team at our Metrology Research Centre, achieved an incredibly impressive accomplishment for a researcher so early in her career: she won the J.R. Cunningham Young Investigators Award at the Young Investigators Symposium, in Regina. This competitive prize, named after pioneering Canadian Medical Physicist J.R. “Jack” Cunningham, is sought after by the brightest medical physics students in the country studying at the graduate level. The symposium is a highlight of the annual scientific meeting of the Canadian Organization of Medical Physics (COMP-OCPM) and showcases presentations of the highest calibre.

“The Symposium is normally dominated by upper-year PhD students, so being selected to present in the first year of her MSc degree was in itself an accomplishment deserving of celebration,” says Dr. Bryan Muir, NRC Metrology Research Officer and Victoria’s primary supervisor. “Only a small percentage of the submitted abstracts are accepted to appear at the symposium.”

A panel of judges considered the quality of the scientific content, the speakers’ delivery and their ability to answer questions on their research topic. Victoria receiving the award reflects both her knowledge of her specialized subject and her proficiency in public speaking, critical thinking and dealing with pressure—essential skills for all successful scientists.

The winning idea

After receiving New Beginnings funding from the NRC Ideation Fund in 2022, Dr. Muir was searching for a graduate student to advance a research project he had been working on since 2020 with fellow NRC researcher Dr. James Renaud, Victoria’s professor and co-supervisor the external collaborator for the New Beginnings funding, is Dr. Emily Heath from Carleton University.

Dr. Heath is an expert in Monte Carlo simulations of radiation interactions and will apply these skills to prototype optimization and determining corrections for various physical effects.

Dr. Muir first hired Victoria after determining that her hands-on experience would be an asset for the project. Victoria gained these experimental skills as an undergraduate student working on SNO+, a particle astrophysics experiment that set her apart from other applicants.

Under Drs Muir, Heath and Renaud’s guidance, Victoria is creating a new type of detector to accurately measure dose (energy deposited per unit mass), the quantity of interest for radiation therapy treatments to eradicate cancerous tumours. The detector is designed to be used for a new treatment modality that uses ultra-high dose rate beams. This modality, coined FLASH radiotherapy, has been shown to reduce damage to healthy tissues, while maintaining tumour control.

Treatments would be delivered in fractions of a second, remarkably faster than conventional techniques, which deliver treatments in radiation therapy in small fractions daily, spread out over multiple weeks. The speed of these treatments could increase the number of patients treated and reduce their discomfort. For example, cancer patients, who are often in pain, would not have remained still or be immobilized for as long as they are with conventional treatments. However, measuring dose for these beams is a challenge using conventional detectors, which limits widespread clinical uptake.

Victoria became involved in this project right from the start, at a point where nothing beyond a proof of concept existed. While this might frighten some early-career scientists, it is actually what Victoria finds most rewarding.

“I enjoy seeing the project take shape,” she says. “There are so many little things that come together and contribute to the big picture.”

Despite the project being in its infancy, Victoria and Dr. Muir are optimistic that they will be able to develop it to the point where it can be translated to the clinic to improve the accuracy of dose determination for ultra-high dose rate beams and therefore improve patient treatments.

Exposure and networking

Victoria’s experience at the conference gave her some direction regarding her future scientific pursuits.

“Attending the conference allowed me to see for myself the differences between clinical work and lab research. Being there showed me what I could do in the future.”

Indeed, events such as the annual COMP scientific meeting allow young scientists to explore the open doors of their futures by connecting with fellow researchers and future employers. Being recognized and awarded by such respected institutions, however, is a stepping stone of a different degree, paving the way for medical advancement and improved health for Canadians.

To learn more about the contributions of many of the talented people that make up the NRC, visit our stories webpage.