CIRMS Meeting Highlights
The Council on Ionizing Radiations Measurements and Standards (CIRMS) 26th Annual Meeting was held April 16th - 18th, 2018 at the NIST campus in Gaithersburg MD. The focus of the meeting this year was on “Radiation Technologies for the Future”.
Plenary sessions addressed future applications of ionizing radiation in the fields of Medical Applications, Industrial Applications, Radiation Protection and Homeland Security. including in addition presentations on the topics listed below:
-
DARPA’s Electrical (Medical) Prescription program and its application to ionizing radiation, https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2015-10-05
-
The challenges & needs of the Breakthrough Starshot Mission https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ixojIvymxM
-
How Big Data and Machine Learning will help improve radiation treatments
-
DNA Dosimetry
-
ASTM Standards & Innovation
-
The future of Radiation Processing and Sterilization
Four awards were given to students working in industrial and medical applications of radiation out of a total of 15 abstracts that were presented this year at the conference. Sponsors of these awards included IBA Industrial, ASTM committee E61, Sterigenics, NIST, and Hopewell Designs.
The Industrial Applications and Materials Effects Subcommittee organized four breakout sessions on the following topics: Gamma and Electron Irradiators and the need of radiation sources for industrial dosimetry calibrations; Current Issues in Radiation Processing including industry expectations for NIST and dose measurement challenges in electron beam dosimetry; Radiation Effects on Materials for Space Applications including radiation effects in DNA; and Low Energy Electron Beam Dosimetry, including the use of polyethylene films as a dosimeter, as well as the challenges associated to dose measurements with low energy electrons.
Several members of ASTM committee E61 contributed presentations for these sessions among others, Jon Janson, Kevin O’Hara, Spencer Mickum, Chris Howard, Emily Craven, Gary Pageau, and Roberto Uribe.
At the end of the meeting the officers for the upcoming year were introduced: Regina Fulkerson from Regina K Fulkerson Consultants, LLC as President, Wesley Culberson from the University of Wisconsin-Madison as 1st Vice President, and Matthew Mille from the Radiation Epidemiological Branch of the NCI-NIH as 2nd Vice President.
Copies of the presentations given at the CIRMS 2018 Annual Meeting are posted on the CIRMS website at www.cirms.org in the Library. We are excited to share that our next annual meeting will be held at NIST April 8th-10th 2019, and will feature new breakout sessions hosted by industry experts to better tailor our meeting focus to our attendees needs. As President of CIRMS, I welcome you and your colleagues to attend our meeting and actively participate in leading the march towards new applications and standards for ionizing radiation.
Sincerely,
Regina Fulkerson, Ph.D.
CIRMS President