PULLMAN, Wash.- Imagine an episode of the CSI television program that focuses on nuclear materials stolen from one of many possible sources your responsibility is to find where the “hot” stuff is coming from based on the radioactive fingerprint of the material.
That’s part of the real-world practice of nuclear forensics, the study of radioactive materials, where they come from, and how they disperse in the environment around us.
Stephanie Holbrook, a doctoral candidate in chemistry at Washington State University, has been awarded a three-year-full fellowship for her studies in nuclear forensics. The fellowship is jointly sponsored by the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security.
Holbrook is a student of Professor Sue Clark, an internationally recognized authority in radiochemistry, the study of radioactive materials.
Eight of the highly-sought nuclear forensics fellowships were awarded nationally this summer from a pool of 32 applicants.
“We recruited Stephanie out of undergraduate work at Tennessee Tech and are glad to have her here at WSU in our doctoral program,” said Clark.
Holbrook will work on chemical questions related in part to radioactive materials at the Hanford, Washington site.
“One aspect will be tracing the fate of contaminants in the environment at Hanford,” Holbrook said.
The research will be done in collaboration with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Holbrook hopes to have her completed doctoral degree in hand when the fellowship expires in 2011.
Holbrook grew up in Tennessee where she was home-schooled in the Bristol, Tennessee area.
