Richard Castillo, PhD, DABR

Biography

Richard Castillo, PhD, DABR, is a professor of medical physics in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Castillo has expertise in image-guided, and adaptive radiation therapy, the use of deformable image registration in medical image analysis, and quantitative methods for lung function imaging from CT. He is a member of the Discovery and Developmental Therapeutics Research Program at Winship Cancer Institute.

He serves as assistant dean of equity, engagement and belonging in the Office of Equity and Inclusion, driving progress in the office's strategic priorities, primarily growing the innovation and discovery portfolio. He also serves on the School of Medicine Faculty Committee on Appointments and Promotion.

Education

Dr. Castillo received his MS and PhD in Medical Physics from the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in Houston and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Radiation Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He received his certification from the American Board of Radiology in Therapeutic Medical Physics in 2016 and joined Emory in 2018.

Titles & Roles

• Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology

  Emory University School of Medicine
• Assistant Dean of Equity, Engagement and Belonging, Office of Equity and Inclusion

  Emory University School of Medicine

Professional Memberships

Dr. Castillo is a Fellow and an active member of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), where he serves as vice chair of AAPM's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee, chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Subcommittee, and founding chair of AAPM's Hispanic and Latin-X Medical Physics Subcommittee. He is standing member of the NIH imaging technology and development study section and also actively serves as associate senior editor for the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics.

Research

Dr. Castillo's research is largely focused on the use of deformable image registration in medical image analysis, for purposes of guiding personalized delivery and treatment adaptation in radiotherapy of thoracic malignancies. He previously has served as principal investigator for an NIH Research Scientist Development Award (K01), and currently is co-investigator on an ongoing clinical trial (NCT02528942) prospectively evaluating the safety, feasibility and preliminary efficacy of 4DCT-ventilation functional avoidance planning.

As part of his PhD research, Dr. Castillo founded the Deformable Image Registration Laboratory website in 2009 and continues to maintain and support its function as a public repository for reference image data and image analysis software for quantitative clinical evaluation of deformable image registration.

Publications