24 September 1999 Bob Scherpelz ('70)

I work as a health physicist in a research group at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Battelle) where I am a staff scientist. My major interests are: radiation measurements (esp neutrons); radiation dose modeling; radiation transport modeling.

Currently my two primary projects are: making a series of unique neutron dosimetry measurements in Hanford's primary plutonium storage vault; and reconstructing doses received by soldiers exposed to depleted uranium from munitions during the Gulf War. I recently managed a project where we designed, assembled and constructed a set of neutron detectors that were installed in the radioactive fuel debris of the damaged Chornobyl reactor. We travelled to Chornobyl after the detectors were installed to train our Ukrainian colleagues in the use and interpretation of the instruments.

After I graduated I taught high school math & science in a small farm town on US 30 east of Valpo. Then I lived in Ft. Collins, CO for two years working in grocery stores. Then I spent two years in the Peace Corps, teaching math and physics in St Vincent, British West Indies. Then grad school: Oregon State University, getting an MS in Nuclear Engineeringin 1978. From there I went to PNNL - been there ever since. (It's ironic that I avoided Dr. Manning's little reactor, and I have spent a good part of my career working around bigger ones.)

Bob