Dana Mathews PhD, MD
(SWC-SNMMI President 2007-2008)

Please tell us about yourself.

I was born and raised in Texas and have lived there most of my life. My medical interests in neuroanatomy and physiology began with taking psychology classes in college, then pursuing a graduate degree in neurophysiology. 

Growing up in east Texas, I was very interested biology and waded through a lot of creeks  collecting things to look at under the microscope.

I love music, mostly blues, R and B and rock and roll. At one point, my now husband and I played in an 8 piece “soul band.” My enthusiasm for playing saxophone was unfortunately greater than my ability!

Give us your background information related to your professional training, including nuclear medicine, and what inspired you to enter this field.

 I got a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Emory University and did two postdoctoral fellowships in the psychology of human sexuality (bet you didn’t know that!) one at SUNY Stony Brook NY and one from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore MD

I taught psychology for 5 years at University of Texas at Arlington before beginning medical school at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas Texas.  I did a residency in Neurology at UTSW (board certified) then a residency in Nuclear Medicine at UTSW.

What do you consider your primary contribution(s) to Nuclear Medicine?

 I contributed  to brain imaging using radiopharmaceuticals for both SPECT and PET. I also was very interested in endocrine imaging and therapy using radiopharmaceuticals.

In what year were you a SWC-SNMMI President, and how did you first become involved with the chapter?

 I first became involved in the SW chapter in about 2020. At at that point, I had been faculty at UTSW in Nuclear Medicine for 7 years. I was contacted by Charlie Metzger because a physicist that had been at UTSW and was now at UTSA suggested that UTSW had no real involvement in the chapter. I was chapter president in 2007 (following the “trial by fire” initiation of being physician program organizer for the 2006 chapter meeting in 2006).

Please describe anything else that you would like for your Nuclear Medicine colleagues to know about yourself.

I have greatly enjoyed and appreciated my time with the SWCSNMMI chapter. From the time I first traveled to a fall meeting in OKC, I was welcomed and experienced great relationships with an amazing group of fellow NM professionals, physicians, and technologists.