News Archive
CSU Students at the Bradbury Science Museum during their practicum at Los Alamos National Laboratory
Photo courtesy of Michaella Swinhart
Student outreach event at Los Alamos Middle School
Photo courtesy of Alexander Brandl
Samantha Labb defending her dissertation to complete her PhD in radiochemistry
Photo courtesy of Samantha Labb
After classes wrapped up at the end of the semester, several students from Colorado State University (CSU) had the opportunity to visit Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). During their visit, students listened to many presentations highlighting radiation protection, occupational medicine, internal dosimetry, environmental health physics, and radiological engineering at LANL. Additionally, students were allowed to tour some facilities demonstrating the vast number of opportunities within the field of health physics.
On the first day, students were astonished by the factoids rattled off by the tour guide during their visit of the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center Accelerator.
The second day was highlighted by tours of the whole-body counter, the Aerosol Science Building, and the Health Physics Analytical Laboratory in the morning. The afternoon allowed a few students to participate in an exercise in the training building including donning and doffing personal protective equipment and responding to a simulated accident in the workplace (disclaimer: no graduate students were harmed in this production). Following the training exercise, students took a tour of the occupational medicine suite where they had the opportunity to see the wound counter and participate in another training exercise to gather a better understanding of how the medical team responds to accidents in the workplace.
The third day included a tour of the emergency operation center where students were able to interact with the detectors during an emergency response as well as walk through an exercise responding to an emergency. In the afternoon students toured the instrument calibration facility to wrap up the tours of the site.
Before students headed back to Fort Collins on the fourth day, some students were able to visit the radiochemistry group at LANL while others went to the middle school in town to present health physics topics to a group of sixth graders. The students were able to discuss radiation basics to some very insightful kids. The sixth graders were also able to view the cloud chamber, interact with some handheld detectors, and play radioactive battleship, bringing the outreach opportunities to a close.
To top off the month, a huge congratulations goes out to Samantha Labb who defended her dissertation this month and earned her PhD in radiochemistry!
