Ronald M. Summers, M.D., Ph.D.

Senior Investigator

Imaging Biomarkers and Computer-Aided Diagnosis Laboratory

NIH Clinical Center

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Building 10, Room 1C224D
10 Center Drive
Bethesda, MD 20892

301-402-5486

rms@nih.gov

Research Topics

Dr. Summers' research interests include deep learning, virtual colonoscopy, CAD and development of large radiologic image databases. His clinical areas of specialty are thoracic and abdominal radiology and body cross-sectional imaging.

Biography

Dr. Summers received his Bachelor of Arts degree in physics, along with both his MD and PhD in Medicine/Anatomy and Cell Biology from the University of Pennsylvania.

He completed a medical internship at Presbyterian-University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, PA, followed by a radiology residency at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI, and an MRI fellowship at Duke University in Durham, NC.

In 1994, he joined the Radiology and Imaging Sciences Department at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD, where he is now a tenured Senior Investigator and Staff Radiologist. He is a Fellow of the Society of Abdominal Radiologists, SPIE, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

He directs the Imaging Biomarkers and Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) Laboratory and is the former and founding Chief of the NIH Clinical Image Processing Service.

In 2000, he received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, presented by Dr. Neal Lane, President Clinton's science advisor. He received the NIH Director's Award in 2012 and 2026, the NIH Clinical Center Director's Award in 2017 and 2025, the Ruth L. Kirschstein Mentoring Award in 2021, and the HHS Distinguished Federal Data Modernization Award in 2023.

He has co-authored over 700 journal, review, and conference proceedings articles and is a co-inventor on 17 patents.

He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Medical Imaging, and a past member of the editorial boards of Radiology, Radiology: Artificial Intelligence, and Academic Radiology. He is a program committee member of the Computer-aided Diagnosis section of the annual SPIE Medical Imaging conference and was co-chair of the entire conference in 2018 and 2019. He was Program Co-Chair of the 2018 IEEE ISBI symposium and Organizing and Program Committee Co-Chair of the 2025 Medical Imaging with Deep Learning (MIDL) conference.

See his Curriculum Vitae.

Selected Publications

  1. Shin HC, Roth HR, Gao M, Lu L, Xu Z, Nogues I, Yao J, Mollura D, Summers RM. Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Computer-Aided Detection: CNN Architectures, Dataset Characteristics and Transfer Learning. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2016;35(5):1285-98.
  2. Yan K, Wang X, Lu L, Summers RM. DeepLesion: automated mining of large-scale lesion annotations and universal lesion detection with deep learning. J Med Imaging (Bellingham). 2018;5(3):036501.
  3. Pickhardt PJ, Graffy PM, Zea R, Lee SJ, Liu J, Sandfort V, Summers RM. Automated CT biomarkers for opportunistic prediction of future cardiovascular events and mortality in an asymptomatic screening population: a retrospective cohort study. Lancet Digit Health. 2020;2(4):e192-e200.
  4. Tallam H, Elton DC, Lee S, Wakim P, Pickhardt PJ, Summers RM. Fully Automated Abdominal CT Biomarkers for Type 2 Diabetes Using Deep Learning. Radiology. 2022;304(1):85-95.
  5. Summers RM, Yao J, Pickhardt PJ, Franaszek M, Bitter I, Brickman D, Krishna V, Choi JR. Computed tomographic virtual colonoscopy computer-aided polyp detection in a screening population. Gastroenterology. 2005;129(6):1832-44.

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This page was last updated on Monday, June 15, 2026