Carson Receives IEEE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award

01/19/2024
Departments: Biomedical Engineering

Richard Carson, professor of biomedical engineering and radiology and biomedical imaging, has been selected for the 2024 IEEE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award. This honor recognizes his seminal “contributions to image reconstruction and tracer kinetic analysis in positron emission tomography (PET).”

The Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award is given annually by the IEEE Board of Directors for outstanding contributions to the field of nuclear and plasma sciences and engineering. 

Carson received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1983 in Biomathematics and, from that time on, he has focused his research on the development and application of mathematical techniques for the study of human beings and non-human primates with PET, a noninvasive imaging technology that uses radiopharmaceuticals to trace in vivo physiology and pharmacology.

From 1983 until 2005, he served as an integral part of the PET program at the National Institutes of Health, rising to the rank of Senior Scientist. In 2005, Carson joined the Yale faculty and was appointed the Director of the Yale PET Center, a state-of-the-art facility focused on quantitative PET techniques using novel radiopharmaceuticals.

Carson’s research interests are concentrated in four major research areas:

  • Creating new PET imaging reconstruction algorithms
  • Developing models for innovative radiopharmaceuticals to image physiological parameters
  • Analyzing PET tracer signals to assess drug effects and neurotransmitter changes using receptor-binding ligands
  • Applying PET tracers to study diseases in clinical and preclinical models of disease.

With over 400 peer-reviewed papers and more than 175 invited lectures, Carson's expertise is internationally recognized. His leadership extends to editorial roles in top brain PET journals: the Journal of Nuclear Medicine and the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism.

Among his numerous accolades over the years are the Kuhl-Lassen Award from the Brain Imaging Council of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, the Ed Hoffman Memorial Award from the Computer and Instrumentation Council of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy of Radiology Research, the Edward J. Hoffman Medical Imaging Scientist Award from the IEEE, and the Yale University Graduate Mentor Award. He has been named a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, and a Fellow of the IEEE.

For nearly a century, the IEEE Awards Program has paid tribute to technical professionals whose exceptional achievements and outstanding contributions have made a lasting impact on technology, society, and the engineering profession. Each year the IEEE Awards Board recommends a select group of recipients to receive IEEE's most prestigious honors.