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John Rowland Mallard was an English physicist who served as the first Professor of Medical Physics at the University of Aberdeen from 1965 until his retirement in 1992, becoming the inaugural holder of the Chair in this subject in Scotland. Born in 1927 in Northampton, England, he completed his PhD research on the magnetic properties of uranium at University College, Nottingham. His early career included positions as Assistant Physicist at the Liverpool Radium Institute, followed by roles at Hammersmith Hospital and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School of the University of London, where he became Head of Department in 1957 and Reader in 1963. He later served as Reader at St Thomas’s Medical School before moving to Aberdeen.
At Aberdeen, Mallard established and led a team that developed the world’s first clinically useful full-body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, with the Mark I scanner first used on a patient in 1980. He also advanced positron emission tomography (PET) by bringing Scotland’s first PET scanner to the university and supported the establishment of a cyclotron facility. His earlier work included developing the first whole-body radio-isotope scanner in the UK and publishing on electron spin resonance and cancer. Mallard founded the International Organization for Medical Physics, serving as its Secretary General and later President, and was Founder President of the International Union of Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine. He received numerous honours, including the OBE, election as Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 1972 and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 1993, the Freedom of the City of Aberdeen in 2004, and various medals such as the Royal Society Wellcome Prize and Gold Medal. Mallard died in 2021.
Dive into the University of Aberdeen's groundbreaking PUFFINS Brain Health Study using revolutionary Field-Cycling MRI to detect cerebral small vessel disease early, preventing strokes and dementia.
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