Home

We want to welcome the newest member of the USTUR research faculty, Xirui Liu. Ms. Liu has worked with the USTUR as a student collaborator since 2019, where her research focused on using autopsy reports to determine how often the underlying causes of death found on death certificates are incorrect. Ms. Liu has both a master’s degree in health informatics from Weill Cornell Medicine (2022), and a master’s in public health in international health and development from Tulane University (2021). She also earned her Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree from Huazhong University of Science … » More …

USTUR research assistant professor, Maia Avtandilashvili, and adjunct professor, Daniel Strom, have been selected to serve on the science advisory board that will conduct a peer review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft document Federal Guidance Report No. 16. FGR 16 “Cancer Risk Coefficients for Environmental Exposure to Radionuclides” is an update to FGR 13, which was published in 1999.

Join WSU Tri-Cities and the Herbert M. Parker Foundation to hear Werner Rühm discuss the process of updating International Commission on Radiological Protection’s (ICRP) recommendations for protecting people and the environment against radiation exposure. Dr. Rühm is the ICRP Main Commission chair and leads the Medical and Environmental Dosimetry Group at the Helmholtz Center, Munich Institute of Radiation Medicine in Germany. Visit the link below to watch.

Wednesday November 2, 12 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. PST
bit.ly/parkerlecture
Lecture Flier

George Tabatadze was interviewed by WSU Health Sciences Spokane Office of Research about his work at the USTUR. Dr. Tabatadze is an assistant professor at the USTUR, where his work focuses on radiation measurements and associated research. Continue reading to learn about the work conducted at the USTUR, and Dr. Tabatadze’s role in that work.

Researcher on the Rise: Q&A with George Tabatadze

Interview by Judith Van Dongen, reproduced with permission
Original article: https://spokane.wsu.edu/research/news/researcher-on-the-rise-george-tabatadze/

Radiation is used to produce energy, power spacecraft and satellites, and diagnose and treat disease, among … » More …

The USTUR’s 2022 Annual Report has been completed and is available for download. The document summarizes organization, activities, and scientific accomplishments at the USTUR from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022 (fiscal year 2022). Research summaries include: latent bone modeling, Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) dosimetry, and radium in the human brain.

Download Report

Martin Šefl gave a seminar presentation to undergraduate students from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. His presentation, which is a part of the Mathematical Sciences Foundry Talks series, explained how a principal component regression was used to estimate the total amount of plutonium in the entire skeleton, based on the activity concentrations in a limited subset of bones. This approach is preferred to calculating an arithmetic mean, because it reduces the risk of bias for non-representative bone sampling, utilizes all available information, and reduces the uncertainty.

Seminar slides (PPTX with animation)
Seminar slides (PDF)

On September 19, Martin Šefl will give a seminar presentation to undergraduate mathematics and statistics students from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. His presentation, which is a part of the Mathematical Sciences Foundry Talks series, will describe how a principal component regression can be used to estimate the total amount of plutonium in the entire skeleton, based on the activity concentrations in a limited subset of bones. When a person wills their entire body to the USTUR, laboratory staff measure the amount of plutonium in each of the 90 bone samples that are removed from the right … » More …

George Tabatadze was reappointed as a member of the WSU Radiation Safety Committee (RSC), which he has served on since 2019. His new appointment has a three-year term, and ends in August 2025. The RSC establishes and ensures compliance with radiation protection policies, reviews applications for and approves use of radioactive materials and radiation producing machines, and audits Radiation Safety Office records.

Dr. Tabatadze is a research assistant professor at the USTUR, where he maintains and operates radiation detection instrumentation, heads up the laboratory’s effort to revise its quality assurance plan, and conducts quantitative analysis of … » More …