The Department of Physics at the University of Windsor is home to the Morris and Beverly Baker Foundation Laboratory for Medical Physics Education.
The Baker Lab is a state of the art teaching space for undergraduate medical physics classes that was funded through a generous $125,000 donation from the Morris and Beverly Baker Foundation as well as a $40,000 contribution from the University of Windsor’s Strategic Priority Fund. At the time of the gift, the Baker Foundation contribution constituted the largest single donation ever received in the Faculty of Science.
This fund was used to design and acquire experiments and infrastructure to create a unique undergraduate teaching laboratory utilized by upper-year students in the Department's Medical Physics program. Medical physicists are health care professionals with specialized training in the medical applications of physics, particularly in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
The work of a medical physicist often involves medical imaging such as x-rays, CT scans, MRI, ultrasound, and nuclear medicine scans as well as radiotherapy which involves the treatment of tumors with high-energy x-rays and radiation. Students graduating from this program will eventually go on to work in hospital diagnostic imaging departments, cancer treatment facilities, or hospital-based research establishments.
Based on a close working relationship with the Windsor Regional Cancer Centre, the specific teaching equipment acquired for this laboratory and the experiments to be performed were all chosen with considerable input from health care professionals and educators both in Detroit and Windsor. This teaching infrastructure will provide Medical Physics students with state of the art equipment and experiential learning opportunities that will prepare them for future careers in the health sciences.