The best poster category was won by Orlaith Hamm a WIT Physics graduate at this year’s Irish Radiation Research Society Scientific Meeting
Orlaith Hamm, a WIT physics graduate, recently won the ‘best poster’ award at the Irish Radiation Research Society 2017 Scientific Meeting. Her poster, ‘Efficiency Calibration including True Coincidence Summing Corrections of HPGe Detectors and Analysis of Marine Samples’reported on work carried out for her final year project on the BSc (Hons) in Physics for Modern Technology. This research was carried out in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Radiation Protection and Environmental Monitoring (ORM).
Orlaith’s project involved the calibration of a high-resolution gamma ray detector at WIT and the subsequent analysis of radioactivity levels in a number of seaweed and sediment samples of interest to the ORM’s marine monitoring programme. The primary focus of this work was to extend existing calibration procedures to address true coincidence summing corrections using the EFFTRAN software tool. Interlaboratory comparisons demonstrated the compatibility of WIT’s measurements with those produced by the ORM. While levels of radioactivity in the marine samples were detectable, they are low and there is no risk to the health of the public from the presence of these levels.
WIT physics staff are continuing to collaborate with the ORM on environmental radioactivity monitoring; the next phase of this collaboration involves extending the WIT system to determine airborne radioactivity by measuring air filter samples from a number of stations across the country.
Orlaith graduated with first class honours from the BSc (Hons) in Physics for Modern Technology in 2017. She is employed in Bausch and Lomb (Waterford) as a metrology engineer in the R&D Metrology Group. Orlaith completed an eight-month work placement within this group in third year of her degree
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