Harrison H. Barrett, PhD

Harrison Barret, PhD, is a Regents Professor in the Wyant College of Optical Sciences and the Department of Medical Imaging in the College of Medicine – Tucson. The foundation of the Medical Imaging Research division, Dr. Barret has a record 45 consecutive years of NIH funding and the Founding Director of the Center for Gamma Ray Imaging (CGRI), funded for more than twenty years.

Dr. Barrett received a bachelor's degree in physics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1960, a master's degree in physics from MIT in 1962, and a PhD in applied physics from Harvard in 1969. He worked for the Raytheon Research Division until 1974, when he came to the University of Arizona.

A Regents Professor, Dr. Barrett also holds appointments in Mathematics, Biomedical Engineering and the University of Arizona Cancer Center. He is a fellow of the Optical Society of America, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE.)

Dr. Barrett has received 30 U. S. patents and written or coauthored over 250 scientific papers; 64 students have received PhD degrees under his direction. In collaboration with Kyle J. Myers, he has written a book entitled Foundations of Image Science, which in 2006 was awarded the First Biennial J. W. Goodman Book Writing Award from OSA and SPIE.

Other awards bestowed upon Dr. Barrett include a Humboldt Prize, the 2000 IEEE Medical Imaging 2020 Scientist Award, an E. T. S. Walton Award from Science Foundation Ireland, and the 2005 C. E. K. Mees Medal from the Optical Society of America. He was the 2011 recipient of the IEEE Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology and also the 2011 recipient of the SPIE Gold Medal of the Society. In 2014, Dr. Barrett received an honorary doctorate in Engineering and Architecture from the University of Ghent in Belgium; he received the Paul C. Aebersold Award of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, and he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

In 2019 Dr. Barrett was named corecipient of the inaugural SPIE Harrison H. Barrett Award for Medical Imaging. Dr. Barrett was subsequently honored as a National Academy of Inventors Fellow. Election to NAI fellow status is the highest professional distinction awarded to academic inventors.