Kyle Jon Lafata

Kyle Jon Lafata is the Thaddeus V. Samulski Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at Duke University, with cross-appointments in Radiology, Mathematics, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research bridges computational oncology, radiomics, and artificial intelligence to advance cancer diagnostics and radiation therapy.

• Education: Ph.D. in Medical Physics (2018) and Postdoctoral Training (2018-2020) at Duke University

Research Interests: Lafata's work focuses on radiomics, tumor topology, immune microenvironment modeling, and biologically-guided adaptive treatment strategies. His lab develops mathematical frameworks for analyzing cancer across scales, from cellular dynamics to imaging phenotypes.

Scientific Contributions: Recent publications highlight applications of AI to radiation therapy outcome prediction, digital twin development for CT imaging, and harmonization of radiomic features across modalities. His team explores uncertainty quantification in segmentation, dose-response modeling, and socioeconomic factors in body composition analysis.

Academic Leadership: He teaches courses in medical physics, radiation biology, and electrical engineering projects at Duke, and collaborates with the Duke Cancer Institute to translate computational insights into clinical practice.