By Emily Cook, EDC staff writer
Getting a new job and being in a new environment can be unsettling. But professor Emily Heath is taking it in stride, making new developments in her cancer research and challenging herself in teaching, all during her first year at Carleton.
Heath joined the Physics department in winter 2014, bringing with her a PhD in Medical Radiation Physics from McGill University and four years of teaching experience from Ryerson University. Her move to Carleton also marked the beginning of her collaboration with the Ottawa Regional Cancer Centre at the Ottawa Hospital.
“Having a collaboration with the hospital is great because that kind of moves my ideas closer to being something that could help patients,” says Heath.
Currently, her research is focused on a simulation program called 4D Monte Carlo, which uses data from radiation therapy patients to see if they are getting the correct dosage of treatment.
“We monitor what comes out of the machine, but we don’t have a way to monitor what got into the patient,” says Heath.
Being connected with the hospital not only provides access to patients, but it also gives access to the machines used to treat them, which Heath’s program is modeled after.
But the move to Carleton has also provided Heath with some challenges. This semester, she’s teaching Electricity and Magnetism, a second year course brand new to the department.
“I feel like I’m relearning the stuff right before I teach it to the students, so that has been challenging,” she says.
Despite its difficulties, Heath says she enjoys the challenge and thinks refreshing herself on the topic will help her research. Overall, she says she’s been really encouraged from her time at Carleton.
“[It] was really nice to be able to discuss a teaching challenge or research challenge with my colleagues,” says Heath about bringing questions to the faculty lunchroom. “That’s quite different from where I was before, it’s not the same kind of atmosphere.”
This past year was one of transition since Heath was still supervising some students at Ryerson, but she says she’s now looking forward to settling into Ottawa.
“This year I’m dropping some of those connections and starting out being able to spend more time focusing on my Carleton responsibilities, and building up my program here.”