RSNA 2021 Outstanding Researcher

A leading researcher in cardiothoracic imaging and a generous mentor, Pamela K. Woodard, MD, PhD, specializes in cardiac CT and MR techniques and in translating novel cardiovascular PET radiotracers into human subjects.

“Dr. Woodard is truly an outstanding researcher,” said RSNA President Mary C. Mahoney, MD, “She is respected not only for her enormous success in funded research, but her generous mentoring of so many of our future leaders in imaging research.”

Dr. Woodard is the Hugh Monroe Wilson Professor of Radiology and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University in St. Louis, where she is also the senior vice chair and division director of Radiology Research Facilities. In this role she provides administrative oversight to the directors of the department’s ten NIH recharge facilities, including the pre-clinical and clinical imaging PET and MRI research facilities and the Cyclotron Facility. She is also director of the Center for Clinical Imaging Research (CCIR), head of Cardiac MR/CT, and director of the Radiology Research Resident Track and the program director of the NIH-funded T32 TOP-TIER clinician-scientist training program in translational imaging research.

Dr. Woodard received her undergraduate degree from Duke University and her medical degree from the Duke University School of Medicine. She completed her internship in internal medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a residency in diagnostic radiology at Duke University, and a fellowship in cardiothoracic imaging at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology.

Following early success in securing grant funding, including a 1996 Siemens Medical Solutions/RSNA Research Fellow Grant and a 1999 Carestream Health/RSNA Research Scholar Grant, Dr. Woodard secured multiple NIH grants. Early in her career, she was a principal investigator (PI) on the landmark NIH-funded PIOPED II project, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which established multi-detector CT as the principal method for pulmonary embolism diagnosis. She also led a key project on the Washington University NIH contract, Program of Excellence in Nanotechnology (PEN) which developed a receptor-targeted radiotracer for atherosclerotic plaque imaging.

Dr. Woodard currently leads her own research program and is a PI or multiple principal investigator on three NIH R01 grants for the translation of cardiovascular radiotracers into humans. She has nearly 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts, several patents, and has served as a charter member on NIH study sections, including Clinical and Integrative Cardiovascular Sciences (CICS) and Medical Imaging (MEDI), and chair of the NIH study section Imaging Guided Interventions and Surgery (IGIS). She has received numerous awards for her work including being named an Academy of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research (ARBIR) Distinguished Investigator.

A revered leader in organized radiology, Dr. Woodard serves on the board of directors of ARBIR and the Missouri Radiological Society. She also serves on the American College of Radiology (ACR) Board of Chancellors as the ACR chair of the Commission on Research. She is a past president of the North American Society for Cardiovascular Imaging. Her expertise has informed the R&E Foundation Research Grant Study Section and the Quantitative Imaging Biomarkers Alliance.