Professor Simon Cherry FRS

Simon Cherry is a physicist who has been at the forefront of developing new technologies for medical imaging, with a focus on molecular imaging with positron emission tomography (PET).  Major accomplishments include co-leading the EXPLORER Consortium that developed the world’s first total-body scanner, early proof of concept studies for integrated PET and magnetic resonance imaging systems and the use of Cerenkov radiation for ultra-fast time-of-flight imaging.  His research spans imaging physics, detector and system development, quantitative image analysis as well as applications spanning preclinical to clinical science across a broad range of disease areas.

Simon received a B.Sc.(Hons) in Physics with Astronomy from University College London in 1986 and a Ph.D. in Medical Physics from the Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden Hospital, University of London in 1989.  He moved to the University of California, Los Angeles for a postdoctoral fellowship and then joined their faculty in 1993.  In 2001, he moved to the University of California, Davis to help establish an imaging program within the newly formed Department of Biomedical Engineering.  In 2025, Simon returned part-time to the UK to work at King’s College London within the School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences.

Simon is an elected fellow of six professional societies and a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Inventors.  He has received several international awards including the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Cassen Prize, the Gold Medal from the World Molecular Imaging Society and the IEEE Marie Sklodowska-Curie award.