ACR Announces 2026 Hillman Fellows in Scholarly Publishing

Washington, DC – The American College of Radiology^® announced the awarding of the 2026 Bruce J. Hillman Fellowship in Scholarly Publishing to Suzanne Byrne, MD, and Mariana DeFreitas, MD. The fellowship provides qualified staff radiologists or radiologists-in-training with a concentrated experience in medical editing, journalism and publishing at the Journal of the American College of Radiology^®.

“Every year our Hillman fellows are among the brightest and best in our specialty, with many of them continuing to be actively involved in the journal after their fellowship is complete,” said Ruth Carlos, MD, MS, FACR, editor-in-chief of JACR^®. “Drs. Byrne and DeFreitas are very accomplished radiologists from whom we look forward to great things in the years ahead.”

Byrne is a thoracic radiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and the assistant enterprise director of community building at Mass General Brigham Radiology. She is also an assistant professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on lung cancer screening, early detection of lung cancer and on the management of lung nodules. Byrne has authored or coauthored more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific papers, articles or letters.

DeFreitas is an assistant professor in emergency radiology at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and associate program director for the diagnostic radiology residency. She is a fellowship-trained neuroradiologist who specializes in acute neurologic imaging. Her research interests are in acute neuroimaging utilization, for which she received the Association of Academic Radiology Clinical Effectiveness in Radiology Research Academic Fellowship award in 2024. DeFreitas holds an appointment as a research fellow at the UNC Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services.

JACR is the official journal of ACR^®, providing information on topics affecting the practices of diagnostic radiologists, interventional radiologists, medical physicists and radiation oncologists. The Hillman Fellowship is named for Bruce J. Hillman, MD, FACR, the JACR founding editor-in-chief from 2004 until 2019.

The fellows will gain hands-on experience in editing and publishing the journal with the JACR editor-in-chief and staff. They will also travel to New York City to spend time with JACR’s publisher, Elsevier.

To arrange an interview with an ACR spokesperson, contact PR@acr.org.