Clay Holdsworth is a graduate student in the UCLA Biomedical Physics Graduate program. His thesis advisor is Edward J. Hoffman, Ph.D. Clay received his bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts with a double major in physics and mathematics, both honors program. He was an outstanding student with a GPA of 3.9, and he received the maximum score in the quantitative and analytical portions of the Graduate Records Exams. He continues to be an outstanding performer in Grad School with a current GPA of 3.96. Clay has won essentially all the student awards available to him in Southern California, and has had to turn down 2 awards because of University rules against double support. While Clay works hard at his research, he also has an interest in sports, which, in grad school, is limited to active participation in intramural types sports and in Clay's case it has also led him to tutoring UCLA athletes.

Clay's research centers on Monte Carlo Simulation of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanners with a view to scatter correction and speed. The original goal was a low accuracy simulation of scatter which could be executed in less than 30 seconds as compared to 24 hours or more with the original software. The current software on relatively old computers now executes in 5 minutes, giving a very accurate simulation of both the unscattered portion of the image and the scatter. The scatter can then be subtracted from the original data. With this high speed simulation, the field now has a tool that can look at PET design very rapidly. For instance, one could check the effect of the energy threshold at 10 different energies in less than one hour, instead of ten days. Clay is expected to graduate in early 2002, and is looking forward to continued research as a postdoc.

Clay Holdsworth can be reached at Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, Biomedical Physics Interdepartmental Graduate Program, UCLA School of Medicine, 10833 Le Conte Ave., B2-096 CHS, Los Angeles, CA 90095-6948; Phone: +1 310 825-3477; Fax: +1 310-825-4517; E-mail: choldsworth@mednet.ucla.edu