2013 Advisory Committee Meeting
Friday and Saturday, September 6-7
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AgendaThe 2013 Annual Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) Meeting was another success. It allowed the USTUR staff, SAC members, DOE program manager, representatives from WSU, a Registrant’s son, and interested scientific colleagues to come together and discuss work that has been conducted by the USTUR during the past year.
Meeting Summary
Day 1 (Friday):
The meeting opened with introductions and news from the USTUR director, the College of Pharmacy assistant vice president, the WSU Tri-Cities chief of staff, and the Department of Energy program manager. Presentations during the morning session focused on routine activities such as: entry of exposure records into the health physics database, Registrant statistics and communication, inventory of stored tissues and acid solutions, and radiochemical analyses.
During the afternoon, presentations focused on active research projects and collaborations:
- Chris Nielsen discussed the distribution of plutonium nitrate in the lungs of a former nuclear worker.
- Tristan Hay summarized an upcoming collaboration between the USTUR and the US/Russian Joint Coordinating Committee on Radiation Effects Research (JCCRER).
- Paul Stansbury gave an update on the Graduate Certificate Program in Radiation Protection that is being developed at WSU Tri-Cities.
- Maia Avtandilashvili presented her work to model the deposition and retention of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) in an occupationally exposed worker.
The USTUR director, Sergei Tolmachev, gave two presentations. The first looked back to the SAC’s recommendations at the 2012 meeting, and described how the USTUR has addressed them. The second looked toward the future by describing the USTUR’s research and operation plan for 2014.
Day 2 (Saturday):
After two presentations in the morning, the SAC conducted an executive session that was open only to advisory committee members. Several of the non-SAC participants used this time to visit the USTUR laboratory. After lunch, the SAC presented a series of comments and recommendations to the USTUR staff. This feedback was intended to guide the USTUR’s activities during the coming year.
SAC Membership
Scientific Advisory Committee members are appointed to three-year terms, and can serve a maximum of three terms. Kathryn Meier completed her third term as the ethics representative for the SAC, and was replaced by Timothy Ledbetter on October 1, 2013. She will, however, remain involved with the USTUR. In her capacity as the associate dean for graduate education at the College of Pharmacy, she will provide oversight of the USTUR program for the College of Pharmacy.
Three additional members of the SAC completed their terms of appointment this year: Robert Bistline, Herman Gibb, and Roger McClellan. All three were eligible for renewal and chose to continue their participation on the USTUR’s advisory committee for another three-year term.
Photograph at top of page: SAC chair, Dr. Richard Toohey, explains the advisory committee’s recommendations to the USTUR staff, while SAC member, Kay Meier, listens.