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MEDICAL PHYSICS
Alexandra Bourgouin

When cancer patients undergo radiation treatment, it’s
crucial to ensure they’re receiving the prescribed dose.
Alexandra Bourgouin, a medical physics PhD student at
Carleton, is conducting research that may eventually help
clinics deliver radiation more precisely.
After doing her undergraduate and master’s degrees in
Quebec City, she was drawn to Carleton by the opportunity to
work with her supervisor, adjunct research professor Malcolm
McEwan of the National Research Council (NRC).
Carleton also appealed to Bourgouin because she
wanted to improve her English—something she did while
presenting at international conferences in Prague, Vienna,
and Washington, D.C. “My first talk, I was really nervous about
it,” she recalls. She was worried she might not understand
English questions from the audience, but she quickly gained
proficiency and confidence.
In another instance of learning by doing, Bourgouin taught
herself the Python programming language and the Monte
Carlo statistical method—with pointers from her colleagues at
NRC. “I’m someone that really learns from example,” she says.
“It was not a real struggle, because I had all these experts [in]
the next office from me!”
She is also able to network with experts as a member of
the Ottawa Medical Physics Institute, a Carleton University
Research Centre of more than 40 medical physicists.

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