Dr. Steen Madsen is a professor and chair of the department of Health Physics and Diagnostic Sciences. He joined the department during fall 1997 and teaches radiation physics, radiation biology, imaging physics, and imaging pathology courses within the undergraduate and graduate programs.

Madsen’s research focuses on the therapeutic uses of light- and ultrasound-based approaches for the treatment of malignant brain tumors. Therapeutic approaches investigated in Dr. Madsen’s lab include photodynamic therapy, photochemical internalization, sonochemical internalization, plasmonic photothermal therapy, and cell-based approaches for delivering anti-cancer agents including gold-based nanoparticles and chemotherapeutics. The overall goal of his research program is to eradicate malignant brain tumor cells remaining in the resection margin following surgery thereby improving patient survival and/or quality-of-life.

Madsen earned his bachelor’s degree in physics and biology from the University of Toronto, Ontario, his master’s degree in health and radiation physics, and doctoral degree in applied nuclear physics, from McMaster University, Ontario. Madsen was a post-doctoral fellow in photomedicine at the Beckman Laser Institute, University of California, Irvine, and he completed a medical physics residency at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Madsen serves on the editorial boards of two journals—Lasers in Surgery and Medicine, and Journal of Environmental Pathology, Toxicology and Oncology—and is a fellow of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery.