Integrating Imaging Physics Into Undergraduate STEM Education

Physics is a notoriously challenging subject that plays a critical and ubiquitous role in our lives. Undergraduate educators thus need new approaches that will encourage college students to study physics.

At Lewis & Clark College, we have addressed this need through the development of a novel undergraduate physics course and supporting textbook that cover the principles, practice, and application of prominent “biophysical” and “biomedical” imaging techniques (i.e., light microscopy and medical imaging) and explore their extensive connections to physics. We chose to focus on imaging because it is a powerful, ubiquitous approach used in biology, medicine, and many other scientific disciplines, and because it has strong foundational ties to physics. Imaging also arises frequently in everyday life in connection with vision, cameras, and the diagnosis and treatment of disease and injury, so students are interested in the topic and appreciate its importance.

The physical foundations of imaging often are established using sophisticated theoretical approaches suited for graduate physics and engineering students. However, they also can be established using introductory (largely conceptual) or intermediate (combined conceptual and theoretical) approaches suited for undergraduate students. Our course uses an intermediate approach accessible to most STEM majors and is very enthusiastically received by students at our institution majoring in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, and/or physics, making it our most popular upper-division physics course. This success suggests that other institutions also would profit from offering a course in the spirit of Biomedical Imaging. Here we describe the course content, including highly popular hands-on activities, to help pave the way for other educators who are interested in teaching a similar course.