Nicholas P. Nelson

Nicholas P. Nelson, PhD

Languages spoken: English

Academic Information

Departments Primary - Radiation Oncology

Academic Office Information

nicholas.nelson@hci.utah.edu

Board Certification

  • American Board of Radiology (Therapeutic Medical Physics)

Nicholas Nelson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Utah and a Medical Physicist at Huntsman Cancer Hospital (HCH). He earned his BS in Nuclear Engineering, as well as his MS and PhD in Medical Physics, from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Nelson completed his residency training in Medical Physics at the University of Utah. His clinical and research interests include workflow automation, scripting and data analysis, offline and online adaptive radiotherapy, and proton therapy.

Education History

Undergraduate University of Wisconsin ¿ Madison
 BS
Graduate Training University of Wisconsin ¿ Madison
 MS
Doctoral Training University of Wisconsin ¿ Madison
 PhD
Residency Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah
 Resident

Selected Publications

Journal Article

  1. Nelson N, Oare C, Nelson G, Martin T, Huang J, Zhao (2025). Feasibility of HyperSight CBCT for adaptive radiation therapy: A phantom benchmark study of dose calculation accuracy and delivery verification on the Halcyon. Journal of applied clinical medical physics, 26(9), e70245.
  2. Zhao H, Nelson N, Streitmatter S, Nordin B, Martin T, Price RG, Kunz JN, Bhagroo S, Huang YJ, Nelson (2025). Correlation between exposure (mAs) and image quality for a rapid cone-beam CT on a ring gantry linear accelerator. Journal of applied clinical medical physics, 26(12), e70374.
  3. Wake KK, Bennett LC, Smith BR, Culberson WS, Hyer DE, Flynn RT, Patwardhan KA, Nelson NP, Hill P (2025). The Cut-Sort-Group algorithm for efficient delivery of collimated step-and-shoot proton arc therapy. Medical physics, 52(7), e17889.
  4. Bennett LC, Hyer DE, Vu J, Patwardhan K, Erhart K, Gutierrez AN, Pons E, Jensen E, Ubau M, Zapata J, Wroe A, Wake K, Nelson NP, Culberson WS, Smith BR, Hill PM, Flynn R (2024). Patient-specific quality assurance of dynamically-collimated proton therapy treatment plans. Medical physics, 51(9), 5901-5910.
  5. Nelson NP, Culberson WS, Hyer DE, Geoghegan TJ, Patwardhan KA, Smith BR, Flynn RT, Gutiérrez AN, Boland T, Hill P (2023). Integration and dosimetric validation of a dynamic collimation system for pencil beam scanning proton therapy. Biomedical physics & engineering express, 9(6),
  6. Geoghegan T, Patwardhan K, Ying Q, Nelson N, Yu J, Gutierrez A, Hill P, Flynn R, Hyer (2023). Design, testing and characterization of a proton central axis alignment device for the dynamic collimation system. Biomedical physics & engineering express, 9(4),
  7. Bennett LC, Hyer DE, Erhart K, Nelson NP, Culberson WS, Smith BR, Hill PM, Flynn R (2023). PETRA: A pencil beam trimming algorithm for analytical proton therapy dose calculations with the dynamic collimation system. Medical physics, 50(11), 7263-7280.
  8. Nelson NP, Culberson WS, Hyer DE, Geoghegan TJ, Patwardhan KA, Smith BR, Flynn RT, Yu J, Gutiérrez AN, Hill P (2023). Dosimetric delivery validation of dynamically collimated pencil beam scanning proton therapy. Physics in medicine and biology, 68(5),
  9. Khan AU, Nelson NP, Culberson WS, DeWerd L (2023). On the perturbation effect and LET dependence of beam quality correction factors in carbon ion beams. Medical physics, 50(2), 1105-1120.
  10. Nelson NP, Culberson WS, Hyer DE, Smith BR, Flynn RT, Hill P (2022). Investigating aperture-based approximations to model a focused dynamic collimation system for pencil beam scanning proton therapy. Biomedical physics & engineering express, 8(2),
  11. Smith BR, Nelson NP, Geoghegan TJ, Patwardhan KA, Hill PM, Yu J, Gutiérrez AN, Allen BG, Hyer D (2022). The dosimetric enhancement of GRID profiles using an external collimator in pencil beam scanning proton therapy. Medical physics, 49(4), 2684-2698.
  12. Geoghegan T, Patwardhan K, Nelson N, Hill P, Flynn R, Smith B, Hyer (2022). Mechanical Characterization and Validation of the Dynamic Collimation System Prototype for Proton Radiotherapy. Journal of medical devices, 16(2), 021013.
  13. Nelson NP, Culberson WS, Hyer DE, Geoghegan TJ, Patwardhan KA, Smith BR, Flynn RT, Yu J, Rana S, Gutiérrez AN, Hill P (2021). Development and validation of the Dynamic Collimation Monte Carlo simulation package for pencil beam scanning proton therapy. Medical physics, 48(6), 3172-3185.
  14. Geoghegan TJ, Nelson NP, Flynn RT, Hill PM, Rana S, Hyer D (2020). Design of a focused collimator for proton therapy spot scanning using Monte Carlo methods. Medical physics, 47(7), 2725-2734.