Dr. Emanuel Kanal graduated cum laude from Yeshiva University in New York in 1977 with a double major B.A. in Pre-Medicine and in Biology and a minor in Physics.  Dr. Kanal graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1981 with membership in the Alpha Omega Alpha Medicine Honors Society, and completed his internship in Internal Medicine and residency in Diagnostic Radiology at the University Health Center of Pittsburgh.  He completed his 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 from 1985 until its incorporation into the UMPC Health system in 1992, when he became Director of MR Services in the Department of Radiology of the UPMC Health System, a position that he maintains to this day.  For the past 12 years Dr. Kanal has served as a Professor of Emergency Neuroradiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where he is the Chief of the Division of Emergency Radiology and Teleradiology in the Department of Radiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Dr. Kanal has served and continues to serve a Founding Member, Board Member, Officer, and/or Member of numerous national and international professional societies (including, among others, the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, the American Society of Neuroradiology, the American Board of Radiology, and the American College of Radiology).  He has been awarded fellowship in the American College of Radiology as well as of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, and serves as a consultant and Special Government Employee to the FDA on MR safety issues for both the Division of Medical Imaging and Hematology Products/Drug Safety group (of the Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology) regarding magnetic resonance contrast agents as well as the FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health regarding MR imaging devices.  He has chaired and/or served on MR safety committees for over 30 years, was the Chair of the first national and international MR safety committees, and was the Chair of the American College of Radiology’s MR Safety Committee from its inception in 2001 to 2012.  He is the lead author of the American College of Radiology’s White Paper on MR Safety and its contained MR Safe Practice Guidelines published initially in 2002 as well as each if its subsequent updates in 2004, 2007, and 2013, and is a co-authored the 2019 update.  Most recently Dr. Kanal is the lead author of the recently published 2020 American College of Radiology Manual on MR Safety.  Dr. Kanal also created and founded the first magnetic resonance safety web site in 1995 and is co-author of the first MR safety textbook.  In 2015 Dr. Kanal founded and was the founding Chair of the American Board of Magnetic Resonance Safety, which certifies/credentials MR Medical Directors, MR Safety Officers, and MR Safety Experts, the individuals charged with overseeing safety in clinical and research magnetic resonance environments.  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 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.  He is also the developer of one of the most comprehensive clinical Magnetic Resonance Tutor/Simulator software ever created, which is used extensively in his courses and lectures. In his formal courses and lectures Dr. Kanal has taught more physicians, house staff, and physicists about the physics underlying the MR imaging process and how to clinically apply it than any other physician or educator in the world today, and serves as a consultant to industry in the design and implementation of magnetic resonance imaging hardware, software, and MR contrast agents.  As the pre-eminent lecturer internationally on MR safety issues today, Dr. Kanal also created the internationally acclaimed MR Medical Director/MR Safety Officer Training Course, for which he is the only lecturer, which consists of 24 hours of detailed lectures regarding all matters relating to safety in the magnetic resonance environment and which over 6,500 have attended internationally since it was first created and presented in June, 2014.  He is also the creator/designer of the Magnetic Resonance Safety Implant Risk Assessment app that is used as a safety checklist to assess potential risks associated with MR exposure of patients with implants, devices, and foreign bodies.  He is also the creator/designer of the MagnetVision™ app which serves as a highly detailed MR safety simulator to assess and broadly quantify risks for patients with implanted devices/implants/foreign bodies located anywhere in the human body who are requested to undergo specific MRI examinations on specific MR scanners and coils.  Having been repeatedly deposed as an expert witness in so many legal cases pertaining to MR safety matters, Dr. Kanal has been pivotal in helping define and establish the legal standard of care regarding safe MR practices in the US in dozens of legal cases over the past 35 years.