News Archive
Latha Vasudevan, PhD, CHP, Chapter Public Relations Chair
Photos courtesy of Latha Vasudevan
The State of Texas Chapter of the Health Physics Society (STC-HPS) held its two-day spring meeting 19–20 April 2024 at the Rudder Tower, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas.
On the first day, we had technical presentations from radiation safety professionals followed by the STC-HPS Executive Council meeting. The chapter typically hosts the spring meeting as a platform for students to highlight their project presentations and to offer the best paper presentation award. Part of the second day covered student paper presentations. All student presentations were equally good, and the judges had a tough time tallying the scores.
Londyn Franklin received the STC-HPS Excellence Award for Best Radiation or Radiation-Related Project.
The highlights were the presentations from the high school science fair winners. The 2024 Texas Science and Engineering Fair was convened at Texas A&M University, where the regional science fair winners presented their projects. STC-HPS members Linda Morris and Latha Vasudevan served as judges, scanned through over 200 poster presentations from different categories, and identified one that closely aligned with the chapter's mission on radiation protection. They presented the STC-HPS Excellence Award for Best Radiation or Radiation-Related Project to Londyn Franklin, a state finalist from the Dallas Regional Science Fair. Her project was titled "Radiation Resilience: A comparative Analysis of Super Absorbent Polymers and Traditional Space suit Materials for Radiation Protection." She was also offered an opportunity to present her work at our chapter's spring meeting in College Station. Londyn was able to come and present her work on 19 April. It was quite impressive to see her present her work flawlessly in front of radiation safety professionals.
Another high school student who was invited to present her work during the chapter meeting was Samikshya Mahapatra. She is a College Station High School student, and her project was titled "Development and Demonstration of a low-cost strip PET Scanner Prototype." She was qualified for the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, which will be held in Los Angeles in May 2024. Her work was so thorough, and her presentation piqued so much interest among the audience. It was quite encouraging to see the young researcher making an extremely well-prepared presentation reflecting the caliber of future professionals.
We had about 40 attendees for the spring meeting and the meeting was successfully concluded by announcing the prize winners for both undergraduate and graduate student category. The STC-HPS presented checks for the best presentations.
- First Place ($250) undergraduate category—Maxwell Koester
- First Place ($250) graduate category—Zavier N. Ndum
- Second place ($150) graduate category—Christopher Martin
- Third place ($100) graduate category—John Corder
The chapter also offered a $50 check to Jordan Hillis for the work she has done for the HPS student branch and $50 gift cards to each of the high school students for their phenomenal work.
The chapter thanks the speakers and the attendees for their outstanding contribution and for making this meeting successful.
The full agenda can be found on the State of Texas Chapter website.
Samikshya Mahapatra presenting "Development and Demonstration of a Low-Cost Strip PET Scanner Prototype
Max Koester presenting "Navigating Organizational Changes in the Health Physics Community"
Zavier N. Ndum presenting "Microdosimetry – The Descriptor of Radiation Quality"
STC-HPS leadership with student members
