July 24, 2026: Diana Gonzalez-Baerga joins our team as a student researcher. She will work closely with Xin Tie on his AAPM Research Seed Funding Grant developing AI-assisted treatment planning for pediatric cancers.
July 6, 2026: Welcome, Rebecca Awuah! Rebecca joins the team as a Research Coordinator, where she will lead our work in dynamic proton arc therapy and advanced craniospinal irradiation.
We are a group of clinical and translational researchers - physicians, scientists, and trainees - dedicated to developing the most advanced particle and radiotherapy techniques to deliver the safest, most precise, and most effective treatments for children and adults with cancer.
Our group has 3 key areas of focus:
1. Particle Therapy: Proton therapy, proton reirradiation, mixed proton/photon treatments, electron therapy, total skin electrons, conformal proton FLASH, proton arc therapy
2. Novel Combined Modality Approaches: Radiotherapy combined with immunotherapy, bispecific agents, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CART) therapy, stem cell transplantation
3. Artificial Intelligence: AI for advanced treatment planning, improved plan quality, rapid initiation of treatment
We research new ways to enhance the precision of proton, electron, and photon radiotherapy.
We collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to explore how radiotherapy can improve the effectiveness of advanced systemic and cellular therapies.
We work with medical physicists and computer scientists to develop AI models that facilitate our advanced treatment approaches.
Michael LaRiviere, MD
Assistant Professor - Pediatrics/Liquid
Department of Radiation Oncology,
University of Pennsylvania &
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Harper Hubbeling, MD
Assistant Professor - Liquid/CNS
Department of Radiation Oncology,
University of Pennsylvania
Emily Lebow, MD
Assistant Professor - CNS/Sarcoma
Department of Radiation Oncology,
University of Pennsylvania
John Plastaras, MD, PhD
Professor - Liquid/GI
Vice Chair of Strategic Clinical Research
Department of Radiation Oncology,
University of Pennsylvania