Danielle McDonagh, D.H.Sc., R.T.(T), has been named the 2026 recipient of the Marilyn Sackett Leadership Scholarship from the ASRT Foundation. This award recognizes emerging leaders who are strengthening the future of radiation sciences through education, research, and measurable impact.
Why This Award Matters
The Marilyn Sackett Leadership Scholarship was created to ensure the profession continues to grow through strong mentorship, research, and forward-thinking leadership. It reflects the legacy of Marilyn Sackett, M.Ed., R.T.(R), FASRT. Sackett has been a registered radiologic technologist for 64 years and is currently the president of the AHEC Foundation and managing partner and president of Advanced Health Education Center and MEDRelief Staffing in Houston, Texas. Her career demonstrates that leadership in radiologic sciences is an ongoing responsibility, not a title.
A defining part of the Marilyn Sackett Leadership Scholarship is the required mentor agreement. Recipients must work closely with a mentor to guide project design, research methods, and outcomes.
This structure reinforces that leadership in radiation sciences is collaborative. It connects experienced professionals with emerging leaders and ensures that innovation is grounded in professional standards.
By selecting Dr. McDonagh, the ASRT Foundation is highlighting the need for education leaders who combine clinical expertise with research, technology, and evidence-based teaching methods.
Moving From Program Director to Research Leader
Dr. McDonagh serves as Program Director of Radiation Therapy at the Mount Sinai Center for Radiation Sciences Education and as a voluntary clinical instructor at Stony Brook University. Through this scholarship, she is expanding her role beyond program administration into formal educational research.
Her focus is the scholarship of teaching and learning in radiation sciences. That means studying how students learn, measuring outcomes, and sharing findings that other programs can use. The goal is to replace tradition-based teaching with data-supported methods.
As she explains:
“This scholarship will support my growth from an education-focused program director to a research-active academic who contributes to the scholarship of teaching and learning in radiation sciences. Through formal coursework, structured mentorship, applied mixed-methods research and conference participation, I aim to strengthen skills in study design, data analysis and dissemination.”
At the center of Dr. McDonagh’s scholarship-funded work is her project titled, “Advancing Educational Scholarship and Research Capacity in Radiation Therapy Education: A Mentored Virtual OSCE Development and Dissemination Project.”
She is scheduled to present this work at the ASRT Radiation Therapy Conference in Boston, Sept. 27 to 29, 2026.
Addressing Gaps in Competency-Based Education
This project builds on Dr. McDonagh’s doctoral research at the University of Bridgeport. Her work identified gaps in competency-based education across radiation therapy, medical dosimetry, and medical imaging.
A key issue was reliance on long-term clinical intuition. While experience is valuable, it is difficult to standardize or scale across programs. That creates variation in how skills are taught and evaluated.
Dr. McDonagh is addressing this by integrating AI-assisted tools and structured goal-setting frameworks. These tools help learners track progress, document skill development, and receive feedback based on defined performance measures. This turns competency development into a transparent, data-informed process.
A Future of Limitless Funding and Innovation
This award supports more than one project. It supports a shift in how future professionals are prepared, assessed, and validated before entering patient care environments. By combining mentorship, educational research, virtual simulation, and AI-supported tracking, Dr. McDonagh’s work strengthens both academic rigor and clinical readiness.
The result is a stronger bridge between education and practice. That directly supports safer care, clearer expectations, and more reliable outcomes across the profession.
