Abstract: The Department of Energy leads the legacy cleanup mission, aiming to minimize the environmental impact of radioactive material leftover from the nuclear energy and weapons research programs of the World War II and Cold War eras.  During deactivation and decommissioning processes, there is potential for this residual contamination to become airborne, threatening the health and safety of not only the site workers, but offsite entities as well. To address these concerns, SRNL is working on an efficient, cost-effective airborne contamination monitoring system using astrophotography techniques to image radioactive material caught on HEPA filters, taking this methodology from stars to particles.

Bio: Austin is an early career scientist who joined SRNL’s Nuclear and Chemical Processing Division as a postdoctoral researcher in June 2024. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Florida State University and his Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry from the Texas A&M University Cyclotron Institute. His graduate thesis involved extracting the photon strength function of nuclei using products of low energy nuclear reactions measured in a novel multi-detector array. His current research focuses on developing detector systems to improve the sensitivity of contamination detection during the deactivation of legacy nuclear facilities and to assist in process monitoring for various Department of Energy missions.