Townsend joined Mevion in 2005. He has held leadership roles in Accelerator Development and Beam Delivery Systems and has served as the VP of Advanced Development since 2013. He was instrumental in the design and development of Mevion’s ultra-compact 250 MeV superconducting synchrocyclotron and holds several patents in subjects related to the synchrocyclotron and pencil beam scanning.

Prior to his employment at Mevion, Townsend held research positions at Harvard Cyclotron, where he treated cancer patients with their historic 160 MeV synchrocyclotron, and MIT, where he developed and commissioned many accelerator systems, including Ion Sources, Magnets, Beam Instrumentation, Controls, and RF.

Over the course of his career, Townsend has collaborated on accelerator development projects with scientists at many National labs in the US and Europe, including Brookhaven, Fermilab, Deutch Electron Synchrotron (Germany), National Institute for Subatomic Physics (Netherlands) and the Budker Institute for National Physics (Russia).

Townsend holds a Ph.D. from Boston University in Applied Physics with a concentration on Accelerator Systems and a B.A. Physics degree from Dartmouth College.