Soon Huh, PhD
Physicist
Dr. Huh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Florida. He works as a medical physicist at the UF Health Proton Therapy Institute to ensure that high quality radiation therapy is delivered to each patient through continuous focus on the latest proton research and techniques.
Dr. Huh has extensive experience in developing automated treatment plans and quality assurance procedures for advanced radiotherapy devices for proton beam radiation, as well as Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) using Elekta, Vero and TrueBeam linear accelerators. In addition, he develops quality assurance procedures for proton therapy treatments using Universal Head Rest (an inflatable and deflatable head rest) and automated planning to treat patients with brain cancers. Dr. Huh also specializes in developing techniques involving Image Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) using motion mitigation systems. He develops various protocols with the use of Cone-beam Computer Tomography (CBCT) with a Filtimator (filter + collimator) to reduce CBCT dose to pediatric cancer patients by a factor of about 30 and methods to improve CBCT image quality. The use of the 0.23T Magnetic Resonance imaging (MRI) in establishing protocols for contouring normal organs, as well as tumors and tumor progression during proton therapy is another project of Dr. Huh. He has completed more than 1,500 scans, to aid in developing various immobilization techniques and devices to mitigate the motion of patients during treatment of liver or lung cancer.
Collaborating with other academic medical centers to develop proton therapy protocols for the treatment of pancreatic, anal, rectal and cervical cancers, Dr. Huh shares his knowledge with others in the radiation oncology field. In addition, he has fabricated various phantoms (medical imaging devices that are used to test the accuracy of imaging and radiation equipment). These devices are used for quality assurance testing and include a breast deformable phantom, moving lung phantoms, and an MRI-safe headset to immobilize pediatric cancer patients and to provide music during scans to improve the patient experience.
Dr. Huh is an accomplished researcher and his work is published in multiple medical journals. He can often be seen sharing his knowledge with other staff members and is dedicated to training radiation therapists, medical and physics residents and dosimetrists.
Board Certification
Therapeutic Medical Physics – American Board of Radiology
Doctorate - Medical Physics, Nuclear Engineering Science (NES)
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Masters – Electrical Engineering
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Bachelor of Science – Electronic Engineering
Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea
Dr. Huh is an avid researcher, with a focus on developing improved imaging scanning protocols to ensure the highest accuracy of patient setup. He has developed custom-made immobilization devices to improve the patient setup process. His research, which led to the development of a Filtimater (filter + collimator) to reduce CBCT dose to pediatric cancer patients was presented in an oral presentation at the 2023 American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting. Dr. Huh researches and trains staff on the use of MRI for simulation and the use of MRI images in the creation of treatment plans. He is focused on translational research with proton planning by establishing the use of proton and photon treatment techniques based on the published results.
Medical Physics Clinical Award
UF Health Proton Therapy Institute (2018)
Physics Teacher of the Year
University of Florida Department of Radiation Oncology (2017)
Shining Star Award
UF Health Proton Therapy Institute (2017)
Employee of the Month
UF Health Proton Therapy Institute (2012)
“My work is mainly to provide and develop advanced and safe treatment techniques to improve cure rates of cancer patients, as well as to educate or train graduate students, radiation therapists, physics residents, dosimetrists, as well as medical residents and medical fellows from the USA and overseas.”
Find Dr.Huh’s publications through PubMed*
*Please note, the resulting PubMed entries may not reflect a complete or accurate listing for faculty members. Many journals are not indexed by PubMed, and there may be articles by other authors of the same name listed for each search.