Faculty

Timothy J. Jorgensen, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor & Program Director

PhD in Radiation Health Sciences and Radiation Biology, John’s Hopkins
Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cancer Molecular Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School
MPH in Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins
Graduate Certificate in Risk Assessment, Johns Hopkins

Dr. Timothy Jorgensen is a radiation biologist, cancer epidemiologist, and public health professional. He is board certified in Public Health (CPH). He is a Member of Council on the National Council for Radiation Protection and Chairman of the Radiation Safety Committee at Georgetown University. He teaches graduate courses in radiation biology, radiation protection, and radiation risk assessment in the Health Physics Program as well as trains radiation oncology residents at Georgetown University Hospital. In addition to his regular appointment in the Department of Radiation Medicine at Georgetown University, he also holds an adjunct faculty appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Jorgensen’s research interests include the genetic factors that determine cellular radioresistance, and genetic variants that may modify the risk of radiation-induced cancer. He is the author of Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation, published in 2016 by Princeton University Press.

Luis Benevides, PhD, MS, MSA
Adjunct Associate Professor

PhD in Nuclear Engineering, University of Florida
MS in Radiation Science, Georgetown University
MSA in Health Services Administration, Central Michigan University

Dr. Luis Benevides is a medical/health physicist, radiation protection and Health Services professional. He is currently a health physicist for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Regulatory Research. He served our nation in excess of thirty years in the US Navy as a Radiation Health Officer reaching the rank of Captain. He has published over thirty peer-reviewed articles and currently serves as an associate editor in Medical Physics and reviewer for Radiation Measurements.

David Smith, PhD, MS
Associate Professor

PhD in Environmental Science, The Ohio State University
MS in Nuclear Engineering (Health Physics), University of Missouri-Columbia
MS in Nuclear Engineering Sciences (Medical Physics), University of Florida-Gainesville.
BA in Mathematics, Central Methodist University

Dr. Smith is the Director, Radiation Safety, Medstar Georgetown University Hospital. Prior to this appointment he was the Executive Director, National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements.  Dr. Smith served in the U.S. Air Force for over 23 years culminating with his selection as the Health Physics Consultant to two, U.S. Air Force Surgeons General. Dr. Smith has also served the Director, Graduate Environmental Engineering and Sciences Program, and Director, Graduate Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction Program, while Assistant Professor at the Air Force Institute of Technology.

Dr. Smith earned his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University where his research was focused on impact analysis from a radiological terrorism event. He has authored or co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, presentations, and technical reports, as well as supervised research on topics addressing various aspects of radiological terrorism and occupational and environmental health.

James Finucane, PhD, MS
Adjunct Associate Professor

PhD in Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
MS in Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
BS in Engineering Science, Stanford University

Dr. James Finucane spent most of his career as a scientist working for the U.S. department of Energy and for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He represented the United States at various technical international forums, and managed a variety of programs to improve the safety of nuclear power and handle spent nuclear fuel. He is the Course Director of two graduate courses including: Introduction to Nuclear Nonproliferation and Indicators of Nuclear Proliferation. Both courses include topics ranging from the fundamentals of radiation physics to the defense against nuclear or radiological terrorism.

David A. Schauer, ScD
Adjunct Associate Professor

ScD in Radiation Physics, Johns Hopkins University
MS in Radiation Science, Georgetown University

Dr. David A. Schauer is Executive Director Emeritus of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements and a subject matter expert with Science Applications International Corporation. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Since 2005, Dr. Schauer has served as a Program Evaluator for the Accreditation Board on Engineering and Technology. He is a board certified health physicist (CHP).

From 1984 to 2004, Dr. Schauer served as a naval officer and during this time he held numerous technical and leadership positions including Science Advisor of the Naval Dosimetry Center in Bethesda, MD. He has authored or co-authored over 50 journal articles, book chapters, proceedings and technical reports. Dr. Schauer serves on the Editorial Boards of Radiation Protection Dosimetry and Radiation Measurements and has given over 25 invited and keynote lectures. His primary research interests are personnel dosimetry, biodosimetry and radiation effects.

David S. Jonas, JD, LLM, MA
Adjunct Professor

BA in Political Science, Denison University
JD in Wake Forest University School of Law
LLM in Military Law, Judge Advocate General’s School
MA in National Security and Strategic Studies, US Naval War College

David S. Jonas is the General Counsel of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. In that capacity he is the chief legal and policy advisor to a Board of five Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed officials tasked with oversight of the Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons complex. He joined the Board on October 7, 2012. Prior to that, he served as Director of Legal Strategy and Analysis in the Office of the General Counsel at DOE. He was appointed to the Senior Executive Service as General Counsel of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on April 17, 2005. NNSA is a separately organized agency within DOE. He began his service with NNSA as the Deputy General Counsel in 2001 and served as Acting General Counsel from 2003-2005. Mr. Jonas is an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center where he teaches nuclear non-proliferation law and policy, and he is a frequent speaker on this topic.

Keir Lieber, PhD, MA
Associate Professor

PhD in Political Science, University of Chicago
MA in Political Science, University of Chicago

Keir Lieber is Associate Professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University. He previously taught at the University of Notre Dame. Prof. Lieber’s areas of expertise include nuclear weapons, strategy, and deterrence; the causes of war; U.S. foreign policy; and international relations theory. He is author of War and the Engineers: The Primacy of Politics over Technology (Cornell University Press, 2005, 2008) and editor of War, Peace, and International Political Realism (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009). His articles have appeared in the leading scholarly and foreign policy publications, including International Security, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, and the Atlantic Monthly. He has been awarded fellowships from the Brookings Institution, Council on Foreign Relations, Earhart Foundation, and Smith Richardson Foundation. Prof. Lieber is currently writing a book (with Daryl Press, of Dartmouth College) on nuclear weapons and international politics.

Mira O. Jung, PhD
Professor

PhD in Molecular Biology & Microbiology, University of Kansas

Mira Jung, Ph.D. received postdoctoral training in radiation biology and molecular biology at Georgetown University. She is currently Professor and Director of Molecular Radiation Laboratory and Microarray Core-Facility in Radiation Medicine and Microbiology at Georgetown University Medical Center. The research focuses on molecular mechanisms underlying radiation sensitivity. Identification of factors associated with the responses of mammalian cells to ionizing radiation has been a major area of her research. The research contributions include the findings that NF-kB activation is a critical mechanism for cell survival of cells from patients with the human radiation sensitivity syndrome of ataxia-telangiectasia and the mutated AT gene product, ATM, is involved in this process.

Recently, her research has made an important breakthrough in signal transduction studies that implicate the chromatin structure modification in the mechanism in radiation sensitivity. Thus, the overall research goals are to determine mechanisms of radiation responses of tumor cell lines, identify targets for therapeutic gain, and develop strategies for using this knowledge for future development of translational research projects.

Vicente Notario, PhD
Professor

PhD in Biology, Universidad de Salamanca

Dr. Vicente Notario is Professor of Radiation Medicine and Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology. He is also Director of the Division of Radiation Research in the Department of Radiation Medicine, and Leader of the Radiation Biology Program of the V.T. Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Notario’s research focuses on the study of molecular mechanisms of development of malignant tumors, and involves the investigation of the effects of environmental carcinogens, such as chemical pollutants and radiation, on mammalian cells with regard to the expression and activity of cancer genes and their protein products.

Currently, there are three main research areas in Dr. Notario’s laboratory: 1) characterization of the molecular mechanism of action of a novel oncogene, termed PCPH, originally isolated in Dr. Notario’s laboratory, and functional studies on its role in the development of prostate cancer; 2) preclinical studies of molecular targeting approaches to block the activity of the EWS/FLI-1 oncogene present in tumors of the Ewing’s sarcoma family, and 3) mechanistic analyses of the involvement of the Dlk1 protein in determining the invasiveness and metastatic program of human lung tumors cells of the small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) type.

Additional ongoing pilot experiments involve studies on the anti-cancer actions of human dietary components.