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Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Mount Pleasant, MI 48859 Permit No. 93 College of Science and Technology ET Building 200 Central Michigan University Mount Pleasant, MI 48859 Alumna serves as Yale hospital's only diagnostic medical physicist Pursuing her master's degree in physics at CMU is one of the best decisions Monica Ghita says she has ever made. As a young girl growing up in northeastern Romania, Ghita had dreams of working as a physicist. She knew she wanted to help people as she observed her mother working as a physician. The 2004 alumna now is the only diagnostic medical physicist at Yale-New Haven Hospital, one of the largest and most "It's very complex, but it's rewarding," prestigious facilities in the nation. she says. Ghita says CMU set her up for success right away with "the high level of faculty and the balanced curriculum, combining classic fundamental science with advanced topics and the latest theoretical models." As the hospital's sole diagnostic medical physicist, Ghita says she welcomes the challenge of patients who come to Yale-New Haven Hospital with high expectations. More than 1,500 beds are available at the hospital, and Ghita stays busy performing numerous important tasks while serving as a resource for technical, medical and administrative staff members. "The state-of-the-art equipment, advanced treatment techniques and procedures, groundbreaking research and clinical trials make for an exciting and challenging work environment," she says. Ghita says CMU was "the ideal place to get acquainted with and adjust to a new culture and academic environment." One of the physics professors Ghita worked closely with at CMU was Marco Fornari, who says Ghita demonstrated she is not afraid of obstacles and challenges. This is why she is so successful in the field. "Monica was an outstanding student, and at CMU she completed her background, performed extensive modeling calculations on materials used for ultrasound generation and detection, and published three papers," he says. Ghita received an undergraduate degree in physics at the University of Bucharest. After receiving her master's degree from CMU, she earned her doctoral degree in medical physics from the University of Florida.