Contact christopher.thompson [at] mcgill.ca (Christopher Thompson) and visit his website
Short bio - I came to Canada after obtaining my MSc. in physics from Otago University in Dunedin New Zealand in 1966. I worked for four years at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Commercial Products in Ottawa. The group in which I worked developed instrumentation for gamma ray spectroscopy, both for use with neutron activation analysis, and for aerial surveys for uranium prospecting. In 1970 I moved to Montreal where I worked for 37 years at the MNI. Initially I developed programs for the MNI’s first research computer to provide customized brain maps during stereotaxic surgery for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease. My introduction to medical imaging came with the installation of the first CT scanner, the “EMI-scanner”, in Canada. In 1978 I designed the first PET scanner to use bismuth germanate detectors and this instrument was added to and improved over many years. Most of my work at the MNI was related to advances in PET instrumentation and support of PET operations in the BIC. After retiring in 2007, I set up a small PET instrumentation lab in my basement, have a license from the CNSC and have successfully renewed a discovery grant from NSERC which I have been using to characterize the detectors of a small animal PET insert for a 7T MRI, the prototype of which is currently under construction.
