Dr. Sprawls is a medical physicist specializing in diagnostic imaging and is currently Distinguished Emeritus Professor at Emory University in Atlanta. In addition to research, his career has concentrated on applied clinical medical physics and the development of programs and resources to enhance medical physics education in virtually all countries of the world. He emphasizes that physics is the foundation science of diagnostic radiology and medical imaging and that knowledge and understanding of physics principles is required for all medical imaging professionals to achieve highly effective diagnosis and manage any associated risk. By recognizing the complexity of modern imaging methods, especially CT and MRI, his efforts address the necessity and process for optimizing imaging protocols and procedures with respect to conflicting image quality characteristics and risk.

Through the Sprawls Educational Foundation, www.sprawls.org, he provides a variety of free-access resources to support medical physics and radiology education on an international level. In addition to online textbooks there is an extensive collection of high-quality visuals for medical physics educators to use in classroom and conference presentations and discussions.

With his extensive experience as an educator a current concentration is on models and methods of the learning and teaching process. This includes developing more effective mental knowledge structures to enhance clinically applied medical physics.

Additional contributions to international medical physics education are as a director and faculty member for the College on Medical Physics at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy, http://www.ictp.it/, and as Co-Editor and author for the Medical Physics International journal, www.mpijournal.org/.