Medical physics sits at an unusual intersection: it’s the branch of physics where theoretical models, how radiation deposits energy, how a magnetic field produces an image, how a beam of protons behaves inside tissue, directly determine whether a cancer treatment plan is safe. For a student who likes physics but wants to see it applied to something with immediate human stakes, it’s one of the clearest on-ramps available. This guide covers what medical physicists actually do, what’s realistically available to a high schooler right now versus what’s a college-years goal, and how to start building toward it.
Reviewed by Dr. Dat Tran
Mentor for Theoretical Physics and Medical Physics.Last reviewed July 2026.
This is a companion piece to our guide on theoretical physics research opportunities for high school students: medical physics is best understood as theoretical and experimental physics aimed at a clinical target, and many of the same research-readiness steps apply.
What is medical physics?
Medical physics is the application of physics principles: radiation, imaging, and biophysics, to the diagnosis and treatment of disease, most visibly in cancer treatment planning, diagnostic imaging, and radiation safety.
A medical physicist isn’t a doctor and isn’t strictly a lab researcher; the field sits between them. The clearest way to describe the work is by what problems it solves:
- Radiation therapy physics: calculating how a radiation beam should be shaped and aimed so it destroys a tumor while sparing surrounding healthy tissue. This is applied theoretical physics: the underlying models are the same physics that describes how any particle deposits energy as it passes through matter.
- Diagnostic imaging physics: the physics behind MRI, CT, ultrasound, and PET scans. Understanding these requires the same electromagnetism and quantum mechanics taught in a physics degree, applied to producing a usable image instead of an abstract result.
- Nuclear medicine physics: using radioactive tracers to diagnose disease, which depends on understanding radioactive decay and particle interactions at a research level.
- Health physics and radiation safety: modeling radiation exposure and dose limits to protect patients, staff, and the public.
- Medical physics research: this is the academic side of the field. Developing new imaging techniques, improving treatment-planning algorithms, or modeling radiation effects on tissue at a more fundamental level, usually inside a university or hospital research program.
Medical physicists working in hospitals are generally required to hold a PhD or master’s degree in medical physics and complete a clinical residency; this is a licensed, credentialed profession, not an informal specialty. That matters for how students should think about the field: it rewards a long, structured academic path, which is exactly why starting early with the right foundation is valuable.
Why Medical Physics Is a Strong Entry Point Into Physics Research?
Medical physics gives students a concrete answer to “why does this matter,” which pure theoretical or particle physics research often can’t offer at the high school level; a modeling error in medical physics has an immediate, visible consequence.
For students who are drawn to physics but skeptical that it connects to anything beyond the classroom or a career decades away, medical physics closes that gap faster than most subfields.
The stakes are immediate and legible. A student modeling neutrino oscillations is working on a genuinely important open question, but the payoff is abstract and distant. A student learning how a radiation dose is calculated is working with the same category of physics, applied to something whose consequences, over- or under-treating a tumor, are immediate and easy to explain to a parent, a teacher, or a college admissions reader.
It rewards the same rigor as theoretical physics. Medical physics isn’t “easier” physics; it’s applied physics, which means the math (calculus, differential equations, statistics) and physical reasoning (electromagnetism, atomic and nuclear physics) are just as demanding, just aimed at a bounded, real-world problem instead of an open theoretical question.
It’s a legitimate bridge for students torn between physics and medicine. Many strong physics students also have an interest in healthcare but don’t want to commit to a pre-med track. Medical physics is a real career that uses a physics degree without requiring medical school, and research exposure at the high school level is a genuine way to test that fit before committing to a college major.
What’s Realistically Open to High School Students in Medical Physics Right Now?
Most formal medical physics research fellowships, including AAPM’s Summer Undergraduate Fellowship and DOE’s SULI program, require undergraduate enrollment, so the realistic high school entry points are hospital shadowing, mentored research projects, and building the math and physics foundation the later programs require.
This is the point where families most often get misled, so we’ll be direct: a lot of “medical physics research for high schoolers” content online quietly describes undergraduate programs. Here’s what’s actually structured for high schoolers versus what to work toward in college.
Genuinely open to high schoolers now:
- Hospital and clinical shadowing programs – many hospital systems and academic medical centers (Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and others) offer observation-based shadowing programs for students aged 16 and up. These are not research, but they’re a legitimate, low-barrier way to see medical physics and radiation oncology departments in action and confirm interest before investing years in the pathway.
- Mentored independent research projects – a one-on-one mentor with a medical physicist or related background can scope a genuine analytical or computational project appropriate to a high schooler’s level: for example, modeling radiation dose distribution in a simplified geometry, or analyzing publicly available dosimetry data. This is where a structured mentorship is more valuable than a prestige program, because it can meet a student exactly where they are.
- Coursework and self-study in the actual prerequisites – calculus, statistics, physics with calculus (mechanics and electromagnetism), and an introduction to programming (commonly Python or MATLAB) are the real foundation. A student who has these well in hand by senior year is significantly more competitive for undergraduate medical physics research later.
- National lab and university general physics/STEM programs open to high schoolers – while medical-physics-specific fellowships are undergrad-only, general research programs like RSI, Simons Summer Research Program, and NASA internships (covered in our theoretical physics guide) sometimes place students on projects with clear medical physics overlap, such as radiation transport modeling or imaging-related computation.
Worth knowing about, but requiring college enrollment:
- AAPM Summer Undergraduate Fellowship Program (SUFP): a 10-week, stipended fellowship pairing undergraduates with a clinical or research medical physics mentor. It requires having declared or being eligible to declare a physics- or engineering-related major, and completion of differential equations and at least one upper-level physics course.
- DOE Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships (SULI): places undergraduates in DOE national laboratories, some with medical physics or radiation science overlap, but requires current undergraduate enrollment.
- NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU): a broad category of NSF-funded summer research programs, including some in medical and biomedical physics, again restricted to enrolled undergraduates.
A realistic mentored project in medical physics is computational or analytical, scoped to a specific, well-defined question, modeling a radiation interaction, analyzing imaging data, or simulating a dose calculation, rather than clinical work which requires licensure.
High schoolers cannot perform clinical medical physics work, administering radiation, operating imaging equipment, or making treatment decisions all require professional licensure. That’s not a limitation on genuine research; it just defines where the research actually happens: modeling and analysis, not clinical practice. Realistic examples of mentored project scopes:
- Simulating how radiation dose falls off with depth in a simplified tissue model, using known physical formulas and computational tools.
- Analyzing the physics tradeoffs between imaging modalities (e.g., why CT offers better spatial resolution than ultrasound for certain tissues, in terms of the underlying physics rather than clinical protocol).
- Reviewing and summarizing the physics behind a specific radiation therapy technique (e.g., proton therapy’s Bragg peak) as an original literature synthesis.
- Modeling radiation shielding requirements for a hypothetical clinical setup, applying attenuation physics.
The common pattern with the theoretical physics projects we’ve covered elsewhere: narrow scope, real physics, mentor-guided, and finishing with an actual written output rather than an open-ended exploration.
How to Start Building Toward Medical Physics Research
The realistic sequence for a high schooler is: build the math and physics foundation, confirm interest through shadowing or informational conversations, then pursue a mentored project that produces a genuine research write-up.
1. Prioritize the math and physics courses that actually matter. Calculus (through at least AP Calculus BC), physics with calculus if available, and any introduction to statistics or programming will matter more for a medical physics pathway than an extra elective in an unrelated subject.
2. Confirm the interest is real before committing years to it. Shadowing, informational interviews with a working medical physicist, or a short mentored project are all lower-stakes ways to find out whether the clinical-and-physics blend of the field actually appeals to a student, versus assuming it does from the name alone.
3. Find a mentor who can scope a project honestly. Because almost no formal high school medical physics research programs exist , most named programs require college enrollment. A one-on-one mentor is often the only realistic way to get real research experience before college. A good mentor will be direct about what’s achievable at a high school level rather than promising more than the field allows.
4. Treat the eventual college major choice seriously. Medical physics graduate programs typically expect an undergraduate degree in physics, applied physics, or engineering physics , not a “medical physics” bachelor’s degree, which is uncommon. Choosing the right undergraduate major is part of the pathway, and it’s worth understanding this years in advance rather than discovering it as a senior.
This is the structure behind Future Forward Labs’ one-on-one mentorship model: pairing students with PhD mentors who can honestly scope a project to a student’s actual level, rather than pointing them at a program that technically excludes high schoolers.
Frequently asked questions
Can high schoolers do real medical physics research, or is almost everything restricted to college students? Almost all named medical physics fellowships (AAPM’s SUFP, DOE’s SULI, most REUs) require undergraduate enrollment. What’s genuinely open to high schoolers is mentored independent research, modeling, computation, or literature analysis, plus hospital shadowing to confirm interest. Both are legitimate, but they look different from a formal named fellowship.
What’s the difference between medical physics and pre-med or biomedical engineering? Medical physics is a physics degree applied to clinical problems like radiation therapy and imaging, it doesn’t require medical school. Pre-med leads to becoming a physician. Biomedical engineering focuses more on designing medical devices and systems. All three can overlap with hospital environments, but the training paths and required degrees are distinct.
Do I need to be good at biology to pursue medical physics? Not especially. Medical physics is physics-first: the core requirements are calculus, physics (mechanics, electromagnetism, and ideally modern/quantum physics), and increasingly, programming. Biology knowledge helps for context but isn’t the gatekeeping skill the way it is for pre-med.
Is hospital shadowing the same as medical physics research? No. Shadowing is observation, watching how a department functions, and most programs explicitly exclude any hands-on clinical involvement. It’s valuable for confirming interest and understanding the field, but it isn’t a substitute for a mentored research project if a student wants an actual research output.
What undergraduate major should I pick if I want to become a medical physicist? Physics, applied physics, or engineering physics are the standard choices; medical physics graduate programs generally expect a strong undergraduate physics foundation rather than a specialized undergraduate “medical physics” degree, which is uncommon. Choosing the right major is a meaningful part of the pathway, not a minor detail.
How does medical physics connect to the broader theoretical physics field? Medical physics applies the same category of mathematical modeling used in fundamental theoretical physics, how particles and radiation interact with matter, to a clinical target instead of an open scientific question. It’s a legitimate, often underrated way into physics research for students who want to see the practical edge of the same underlying science.
Work with a mentor who specializes in your field
At Future Forward Labs, our PhD mentors guide middle and high school students through original materials science research, from choosing a testable question to running real experiments and presenting at regional, state, and international science fairs. Every student is matched with a mentor who specializes in their research area, not a generalist, so the guidance is grounded in real expertise in the field.
