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AMOS NORMAN

Occupation: Professor Emeritus of Radiation Oncology and Radiological Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles

Born Nov 25, 1921 Vienna, Austria (of U.S. citizens)

Education:
Postdoctoral Fellow, Columbia University, 1950-51.
Ph.D. Columbia University, New York, 1950, Biophysics
M.S. Columbia University, New York, 1947, Physics
A.B. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1943, Physics

Certification: Radiological Physics

Career: U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946 (1st Lt. Infantry, Rifle Platoon leader, 101 st Airborne Division). Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor and Professor Emeritus at the School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles since July 1951 where he did teaching, research and administrative duties.

I. Teaching

A. Graduate program
Taught the following courses in the (now) Biomedical Physics Graduate Program: a. Physics of Nuclear Medicine, b. Physics of Diagnostic Radiology, c. Health Physics, d. Seminar in Medical Physics, and contributed lectures on radiation breakage of chromosomes and cell survival kinetics to the course Introductory Radiation Biology

B. Residents in Radiology
Lectured in the Physics of Diagnostic Radiology to Residents in Radiology at UCLA and at the affiliated Harbor General Hospital and coached them for their Board Exams.

C. Medical Students
For many years lectured Medical Students at UCLA on Radiation Safety.

D. Undergraduates
He organized a course called Radiation and Medicine for undergraduates at UCLA some twenty years ago and offered it each year in the Freshman-Sophomore Seminar Series. Taught for three years a course on Nuclear War and for one year participated in a course organized by the Political Science Department titled War.

E. AAPM Summer School
Participated in the AAPM Summer School, organized by MA Greenfield, in 1978 on the Teaching of Medical Physics and offered two lectures: one on Radiation Biology and the other on Personnel Protection in the Teaching of Medical Physics.

F. Ph.D. committees
Served at UCLA on some 40 Ph.D. Committees for students in Physics, Chemistry, Nuclear Engineering and, (mostly) in Medical Physics. Chaired the Ph.D. committees for P Spiegler, HS Frey, RG Evans, W Nikesch, FE Holly, T Donlon, K Lee, JA Roseboro, D Kwan, L McConlogue, R Udkoff, CP Myers, HH Callisen, M Pincu, S Chan, MA Astrahan, JA O’Rear, KS Iwamoto, S Stephens, RG Lane, WG Connor, R Macintosh, AA Kelton, C Chamberlain, B Kennedy, T Kampp, D Rimkus.

G. MS Committees
Guided the following graduate students to MS degrees in Biomedical Physics. R. Veomett, JC Mitchell, C Aoki

H. Postdocs
Guided the following postdocs: Motomichi Sasaki, Masao Sasaki, Marty Epstein, Dan Pinkel, Barry Dorfman Mike Middleton and Renato Santos Mello in their studies of Medical Physics

J. Invited Lectures
Invited to lecture on his research at UC Santa Barbara, UC San Francisco, UC Irvine, University of New Mexico (Las Vegas), California State College, Long Beach, Radiobiology Institute (Kyoto), Tokyo University and several institutions in Brazil, and has been invited to participate in many scientific conferences.

K. DOE and NSF funded Programs
For many years was the UCLA Representative to the Associated Western Universities and was instrumental in selecting faculty from the Associated Universities for fellowships to do advanced studies at DOE Laboratories. And was instrumental in selecting undergraduates from colleges all over the United States to spend a summer working in a UCLA lab. (He also recruited UCLA faculty to participate in this DOE funded program and took students into his lab.) Early in his career he also participated in an NSF program in the Dept of Radiology to train high school and junior high teachers in the physics of radioactivity.

II. Other Activities

At UCLA served on many Committees most notably for four years, two as Chair, on the Graduate Council, many years on the Medical Radiation Safety Committee and many years as a member and Chair, of the Radiation Safety Committee. He currently serves on the Board of The Emeriti Association and on the Board of the Faculty Association. He has also participated at UCLA and in local and national programs on discussions of nuclear war and nuclear accidents. And he has been a consultant on various projects, among other organizations, the US Airforce, Atomics International, the Rand Corporation, Southern California Edison Co., Harbor General Hospital, and the West Los Angeles Veterans Medical Center.

Publications (selected)

  1. Atwood KC, Norman A. "On the Interpretation of Multihit Survival Curves," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 35: 696, 1949.
  2. Greenfield MA, Norman A, Dowdy AH, Kratz, PM. "Beta and Gamma Induced Cerenkov Radiation in Water," J. Opt. Soc. Am. 43:42, 1953.
  3. Ginoza, W., Norman, A. "Radiosensitive Molecular Weight of Tabacco Mosaic Virus Nucleic Acid," Nature 179: 520, 1957
  4. Greenfield MA, Fichman M, Norman A. "Dosage Tables for Linear Radium Sources Filtered by 0.5 and 1.0 mm of Platinum, " Radiology 73:418, 1959.
  5. Norman A, Sasaki M, Ottman RE, Veomett RC. "Chromosome Aberrations in Radiation Workers," Radiat Res 23 :282, 1964.
  6. Norman A, Sasaki MS, Ottoman RE, Fingerhut AG. "Lymphocyte Lifetime in Women, "Science 147: 745, Feb. 1965.
  7. Norman, "Thermal Spike Effects in Heavy-Ion Tracks," Radiat Res. Suppl. 7: 33-37, 1967.
  8. Pinkel, D., Epstein, M., Udkoff., R., Norman, A. "A Flow Fluorescence Polarimeter. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 49:905-912, 1978.
  9. Callisen, H. H., Adams, F. A., Norman, A. "Absorbed Dose in the Presence of Contrast Agents During Pediatric Cardiac Cauterization." Med Phys 6, 504-509, 1980
  10. Astrahan MA, Norman A. A Localized Current Field Hyperthermia System for Use with 192-Iridium Implants. Med Phys 9: 419-424 1982.
  11. Mello SR, Callisen H, Winter J, Kagan AR, Norman A. "Radiation Dose Enhancement in Tumors with Iodine." Med. Physics 10, 75-78 1983.
  12. Norman, A., Kagan, A. R., Chan, S. "The Importance of Genetics for the Optimization of Radiation Therapy." Am. J. Clin. Oncol. 11, 107-115, 1988
  13. Norman A, Ingram M, Skillen RG, Freshwater DB, Iwamoto KS, Solberg T. X-Ray Phototherapy for Canine Brain Masses. Radiat Oncol Invest 5: 8-14, 1997
  14. Norman A, Kagan AR. Point/Counterpoint: Radiation doses are not safe in radiation therapy. Med Phys 24: 1710-1713, 1997.
  15. Rose JH, Norman A, Ingram M, Aoki C, Solberg T, Mesa A. First radiotherapy of human metastatic brain tumors delivered by a computerized tomography scanner (CTRx). Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 45: 1127-32, 1999.

Awards:
AEC Predoctoral Fellow (1948-1950)
AEC Postdoctoral Fellow (1950-1951)
Sigma Xi (1950)
ACR Fellow (1960)
NSF- CNPq visiting scientist in Brazil (1977)
AAPM Fellow (1999)
AAPM Lifetime Achievement Award (2002)

American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Activities

  1. With the late Norman Baily helped found the local Southern California Chapter of the AAPM and to organize its meetings so as to provide opportunities for graduate students in Southern California to present their research.
  2. Served on the Radiation Biology Committee of the AAPM, chaired by Webster, that issued AAPM Report Number 18, 1986 "A Primer on Low level Radiation and its Biological Effects."
  3. Served as Associated Editor of Medical Physics for 21 years from 1979 to 2000 (and received a handsome plaque for it)

Family: Married to Elaine (Atlas) Norman since Nov 1946. Four children: Dean Norman, M.D., Jane Norman J.D., Kim Norman , M.D., and Joyce Norman, M.D. Nine grandchildren two in Military service and seven in high school or college.