Richard Laforest, PhD

Richard Laforest, PhD, is a professor of radiology and principal investigator within the Precision Radiotheranostics Research Center at WashU Medicine’s Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR). Laforest also serves as co-director of MIR’s Preclinical Imaging Facility and co-director of the Small Animal Cancer Imaging Core at Siteman Cancer Center. As leader of the Laforest Lab, he is focused on quantitative nuclear medicine and PET methods using multimodality SPECT/CT, PET/CT and PET/MRI for the study of various diseases related to inflammation, oncology and cardiology.

Laforest is a member of several professional organizations including the Society of Nuclear Medicine and the American Associate of Physicists in Medicine. In 2023, he was honored with the Distinguished Investigator Award by the Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research in celebration of his high level of achievement in the field of imaging research. He has published more than 90 peer-reviewed papers as well as several book chapters and review articles.

Laforest earned a bachelor’s degree in physics, master’s degree in experimental nuclear physics and a doctorate in experimental nuclear physics — all from Laval University in Quebec. He joined the MIR faculty in 2000.