Woodard Elected to National Academy of Medicine

Pamela K. Woodard, MD, director of WashU Medicine Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR), was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. One of the highest honors in medicine, membership in the Academy recognizes outstanding professional achievement.

Woodard is a renowned physician-scientist, having made significant advancements in translating cardiac imaging techniques into humans. These accomplishments include translating a technique that reduces motion artifact, which are image disturbances that can occur in MRI scans when the patient breathes. She also led a team that developed and translated a PET imaging radiotracer that may help physicians better identify stroke risk in patients.

A pioneer in multidetector spiral computed tomography (CT), Woodard worked on the technique as a resident at Duke University to detect pulmonary embolisms. She was a principal investigator on the clinical trial that eventually established multidetector spiral CT — which takes multiple CT images simultaneously — as the standard of care for diagnosing blood clots in the lungs.

Woodard is a committed educator, leading MIR’s Training Opportunities in Translational Imaging Education and Research (TOP-TIER) program since its inception in 2017. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the American College of Radiology, and the American Heart Association. In 2025, she was awarded the North American Society for Cardiovascular Imaging Gold Medal and currently serves as president of the Academy of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research. The Radiological Society of North America named her the 2021 Outstanding Researcher, and she served as president of the American College of Radiology from 2024–2025.

Read more about Woodard from WashU Medicine.