Prof. Keith Boddy

Keith Boddy has had a distinguished career in medical physics, both on the national and international stage, and is one of the world's foremost experts in the field of radiation physics.
Graduating from Liverpool University in 1959, he was appointed Radiation Protection Officer and Head of Health Physics at the Associated Electrical Industries' (Fundamental) Research Laboratory, Aldermaston Court. There he established the first Environmental Survey Programme and Off-Site Emergency Scheme outside the UKAEA and was the first to report radioactivity in rainfall following Russian nuclear weapons tests.
In 1963 he was appointed as Lecturer (later Senior Lecturer) at the Scottish Universities' Research and Reactor Centre where he developed the first high sensitivity shadow-shield and mobile whole-body radioactivity counters for use in clinical studies of body composition and metabolism and for radiation protection. He published many papers related to body composition and metabolism in a wide variety of clinical disorders. His research included reports on the first use of californium-252 sources for partial body in-vivo neutron activation analysis (IVNAA), the first use of bilateral neutron generators for total body IVNAA, and the first measurements of total body oxygen in humans.
He was awarded Ph.D (Glasgow University) and, subsequently, D.Sc. (Strathclyde University) for research contributions. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
In 1978 he returned to the North East of England, where he had been brought up, on appointment as Head of the Regional Medical Physics Department of the (then) Northern Regional Health Authority and, concurrently, as Professor and Head of the University Department of Medical Physics, Newcastle University. Over the years he has built this up to be one of the foremost Medical Physics departments in the UK, with over 270 staff in 7 Units and 6 sub-Units at 18 hospitals or Centres in the North East.
He has served on many committees, where his incisive judgement and sense of humour have been much appreciated. He has been a member of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) of the UK Department of Health and of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) of the Department of the Environment. He has also served on the Ionising Radiations Advisory Committee (IRAC) of the Health and Safety Executive and as Chair of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency's 'Dounreay Particles Advisory Group'.
He has received many awards, including a Premier Award of the Institute of Physics and the Skinner Medal of the Royal College of Radiologists. He has been awarded Honorary Fellowship or Membership by several major national institutions, including IPEM, BNMS, BIR, and SRP. His distinguished career was recognized by the UK government by the award Commander of the British Empire (C.B.E.) on his retirement in 1998.
He served as President of many national and international institutions related to Medical Physics; most recently as President of the International Organization for Medical Physics and as President of the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine, having led IUPESM to Full Membership of the International Council for Science. He was presented with "IUPESM Award of Merit for Outstanding Achievements in Physical and Engineering Sciences" (2000).