News Archive

G. William Morgan Lectureship Award

Gayle Woloschak
G. William Morgan Lectureship Award
Photo courtesy of Barbara Hamrick

Ed Calabrese
G. William Morgan Lectureship Award
Screenshot courtesy of Barbara Hamrick

Senior Scientist Award

Senior Scientist Award winner Eugene (Gene) Carbaugh (far right) with, left to right, Bernard Le Guen, Mike Mahathy, and Nolan Hertel. Thanks to recent Health Physics Society past presidents for donating for a cash prize for Gene.
Photo courtesy of Barbara Hamrick

Young Scientists and Professionals Award

Nicole Martinez, HPS Secretary

Rachel Pope Nichols
Submitted photo

Emily Caffrey
Submitted photo

Amna Hassan
Submitted photo

Lekhnath Ghimire
Submitted photo

Deepesh Poudel
Submitted photo

A Young Scientists and Professionals Award (YSPA) competition was held as part of the Health Physics Society (HPS)/International Radiation Protection Association (IRPA) North American Regional Congress earlier this year. This award seeks to recognize the work done by early-career scientists and professionals to help promote interest and expertise of the new generation in the field of radiation protection.

The competition was a multistep process: candidates first had to be selected by their respective IRPA associate society from a pool of individuals based on abstracts submitted for the congress. Upon selection, all nominated candidates were required to submit a written paper and provide a presentation of that paper at the congress, either in person or virtually. Papers were independently reviewed and evaluated by three different judges for rigor, impact, and clarity. Presentations were evaluated for delivery, organization, and design. Combined scores from the paper and presentation were used to decide the winners.

The Grand Prize Winner was Rachel Pope Nichols from the HPS. Her paper was titled "Comparison of Veterinary Medicine Radiation Safety Programs Across the US." She will receive $1,000 and a registration to IRPA 16, both donated by MJW Corporation, and a registration to ICRP 2021+1, donated by the secretariat of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). Rachel works as a health physicist for the University of Missouri and has experience in medical, veterinary, and university health physics applications. In her spare time, she enjoys throwing some pots on the potter's wheel and hanging out with her health physicist husband and their grumble of pugs.

The First Runner-up was Emily Caffrey from the HPS. Her paper was titled "Dose Assessment for Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials Disposals in Landfills." She will receive $500, donated by the Medical Section of the HPS. Emily is the editor in chief of the HPS website Ask the Experts feature, assistant professor and program director for the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health Physics MS Program, and scientific consultant to Risk Assessment Corporation. When not doing health physics, Emily spends her time riding bikes and baking. She also enjoys working with her crazy rescue pup, Atlas.

The Second Runner-up was Amna Hassan from the Canadian Radiation Protection Association (Association Canadienne de radioprotection/CRPA). Her paper was titled "The Influence of Local Environment in Yeast-Based Biodosimetry Measurements." Amna is a second-year PhD student at Ontario Tech University. Outside of her research and professional work, her hobbies include cooking, rock climbing, and swimming. She will receive $250, donated by the Academic, Industrial, and Research Radiation Safety (AIRRS) Section of the HPS.

The three other candidates who were successful in making it to the final stage of the competition were Lekhnath Ghimire, Joeun Lee, and Deepesh Poudel.

Lekhnath, representing the CRPA, presented his work titled "A New Method for Measuring Low Doses in Deciduous Teeth Enamel Using EPR Spectroscopy for Retrospective and Accident Dosimetry." He is a PhD candidate at Ontario Tech University. Besides radiation dosimetry, he is also interested in nuclear forensics, nuclear chemistry, plasma physics (cold atmospheric plasma), remote detection systems, nuclear nonproliferation, and MCNP radiation transport modeling.

Joeun, representing the HPS, presented her work titled "Preliminary Risk Profile for PUR-1 Research Reactor." Joeun is a PhD student at Purdue University.

Deepesh, representing the HPS, presented his work titled "Regional Retention of Plutonium in the Respiratory Tract of Four Acutely-Exposed Workers Can Be Described Using Scar-tissue Compartments." Deepesh is an internal dosimetrist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. His research interests include internal dosimetry and biokinetic modeling, applied health physics, radiation instrumentation and counting statistics, and environmental health physics. Deepesh lives in Los Alamos, New Mexico, with his wife and one-year-old son. During their free time, they enjoy hiking and watching soccer together.

A jury of experienced professionals was convened to evaluate the papers and presentations as described above. The primary members of the jury were Christopher Clement (ICRP scientific secretariat), Dr. Bernard le Guen (IRPA president), Dr. Latha Vasudevan (Texas A&M University RSO, HPS director, and HPS AIRRS Section incoming president), Andy Miller (Cleveland Clinic RSO and HPS Medical Section incoming president), Tom Labone (MJW Corporation), and Dr. Nicole Martinez (HPS secretary and Clemson University associate professor).

In addition, due to scheduling conflicts during the congress, the following individuals assisted with evaluations of the presentations: Dr. Derek Jokisch (Francis Marion University professor and department chair), Dr. Nolan Hertel (congress president and Georgia Institute of Technology professor), and Dr. Dawn Montgomery (Clemson University assistant radiation safety officer).

A special thank you to all of our candidates, judges, and donors for making this such a successful and interesting event. And of course, a special congratulations to our winners!

We will be sharing more photos from the congress in upcoming issues of Health Physics News.

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