Simon Cherry, distinguished professor of biomedical engineering at UC Davis

Simon Cherry has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, in recognition of his work pioneering new medical imaging technologies to improve cancer detection and treatment, especially in positron emission tomography, or PET. In 2015, the National Institutes of Health awarded Cherry and his colleague, Ramsey Badawi, a $15.5 million grant to develop the world’s first total-body PET scanner. This scanner allows all tissues and organs to be imaged simultaneously with 40 times more sensitivity than existing combination PET/CT scanners. It also reduces a patient’s radiation exposure dramatically. Cherry was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2016.