Emanuel Kanal, MD, FACR, is the Director of MR Services and Professor of Radiology and Neuroradiology in the Department of Radiology of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He graduated cum laude from Yeshiva University in New York with a double major B.A. in Pre Medicine and Biology, and a minor in Physics. Dr. Kanal then graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine with membership in the Alpha Omega Alpha Honors Society and completed his internship in Internal Medicine and residency in Diagnostic Radiology at the University Health Center of Pittsburgh. He completed a first fellowship in Magnetic Resonance Imaging and a second Fellowship in Neuroradiology at The Pittsburgh NMR Institute and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Dr. Kanal was the Medical Director of the Pittsburgh NMR Institute until its incorporation into the UMPC Health system when he became Director of MR Services in the Department of Radiology of the UPMC Health System, a position that he maintains to this date.

Dr. Kanal is a Founding Member, Board Member, Officer, and/or Member of numerous national and international professional societies, and serves as a consultant to the FDA on MR safety issues. He has chaired and/or served on MR safety committees for over 17 years, was the chairman of the first such national and international MR safety committee, sits on the American College of Radiology's (ACR) Task Force on Patient Safety, and chairs the ACR's Blue Ribbon Panel on MRI Safety. Dr. Kanal also founded the international MR safety web site in 1995, which he maintains to this day, and is co-author of the first MR safety textbook. Dr. Kanal is also the first to have developed and presented, in 1991, the usage of timed bolus contrast enhanced magnetic resonance angiography in humans. He is the author of the custom-developed Kanal's MR Simulator and Kanal's MR Tutor software which is used extensively throughout his MR educational programs. He has published numerous original, peer reviewed articles, reviews, monographs, abstracts, books and book chapters and lectures extensively on clinical MR and MR safety-related topics.