David Townsend's Biography

David Townsend, Director, Clinical Imaging Research Center

David W. Townsend obtained his BSc in Physics and his Ph.D. in Particle Physics and was a staff member for eight years at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1980, Dr Townsend joined the faculty of Geneva University Hospital. In 1993, he moved to the University of Pittsburgh as an Associate Professor of Radiology and Senior PET Physicist. He was Co-Director of the Pittsburgh PET Facility from 1996-2002, and became Professor of Radiology in 2000. The PET/CT scanner, developed by Dr Townsend and Dr Ronald Nutt, was named by TIME Magazine as the medical invention of the year 2000. In 2006, he was elected a Fellow of the IEEE. He shared with Dr Nutt the 2010 IEEE Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology. From 2003 to 2009, Dr Townsend was Director of the Molecular Imaging and Translational Research Program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In July 2009, he became Head of PET and SPECT Development for the Singapore Bioimaging Consortium, a Professor of Radiology at the National University of Singapore and was appointed Director of the A*STAR-NUS Clinical Imaging Research Centre in December 2010. In 2015, he received the Paul C. Aebersold Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.