Official Newsletter of the
State of Texas Chapter of the Health Physics Society
State of Texas Chapter of the Health Physics Society
In this issue . . .
• Annual Student Paper Presentations and Annual Business Meeting, April 24
• STC Student Corner . . .
• State of Texas (STC) Science Teachers Workshop goes Nationwide
• International Radiation Protection Association (IRPA) Congress
• National HPS “virtual” annual meeting September 2020
• State of Texas Chapter of the Health Physics Society goes virtual in 2020
• Minutes of the October 2020 STC Executive Council Meeting
• Annual Student Paper Presentations and Annual Business Meeting, April 24
• STC Student Corner . . .
• State of Texas (STC) Science Teachers Workshop goes Nationwide
• International Radiation Protection Association (IRPA) Congress
• National HPS “virtual” annual meeting September 2020
• State of Texas Chapter of the Health Physics Society goes virtual in 2020
• Minutes of the October 2020 STC Executive Council Meeting
Annual Student Paper Presentations and Annual Business Meeting, April 24
The Annual Student Paper Presentations and Annual Business Meeting will be held Saturday, April 24, 2021. More details to follow.
STC Student Corner . . .
By: Linda Morris, Chair, STC Student Assistance Committee
The State of Texas – Health Physics Society is again participating as judges in regional and state science and engineering fairs to recognize student projects that study ionizing or non-ionizing radiation. The Chapter has recognized projects from the Dallas Regional Science & Engineering Fair as well as one from the Austin Science Festival so far. STC members Latha Vasudevan and Linda Morris will also be judging at the Texas Science and Engineering Fair being held in March with awards being announced in April. Winners of the STC award will be given plaques as well as complimentary student memberships in STC. They will also be invited to present their research at a future STC meeting. In years past, the STC has nominated Texas students for the national HPS Science Fair award with frequent success.
The Spring STC meeting being held on April 24 will allow college and university students from around the state to present at the meeting. Cash awards are given in the undergraduate and graduate categories. First prize in each category is $250 along with a $100 second place award. Academic institutions that have previously participated include Texas A&M University, the University of Houston, and several medical centers.
The national HPS is offering travel awards to the annual conference in Phoenix. If an STC student member has been awarded an HPS grant, they may apply to receive a supplement from STC-HPS to help with travel expenses. Please contact Student Assistance Chair Linda Morris for more information.
The 2021 STC Education Grant application process is open. STC student members in good standing may go to the STC website to obtain the forms. The forms should be sent to Linda Morris. Deadline for entries is May 31, 2021. Three $1,000 awards are available and will be presented to the winners at the Fall 2021 STC meeting.
The State of Texas – Health Physics Society is again participating as judges in regional and state science and engineering fairs to recognize student projects that study ionizing or non-ionizing radiation. The Chapter has recognized projects from the Dallas Regional Science & Engineering Fair as well as one from the Austin Science Festival so far. STC members Latha Vasudevan and Linda Morris will also be judging at the Texas Science and Engineering Fair being held in March with awards being announced in April. Winners of the STC award will be given plaques as well as complimentary student memberships in STC. They will also be invited to present their research at a future STC meeting. In years past, the STC has nominated Texas students for the national HPS Science Fair award with frequent success.
The Spring STC meeting being held on April 24 will allow college and university students from around the state to present at the meeting. Cash awards are given in the undergraduate and graduate categories. First prize in each category is $250 along with a $100 second place award. Academic institutions that have previously participated include Texas A&M University, the University of Houston, and several medical centers.
The national HPS is offering travel awards to the annual conference in Phoenix. If an STC student member has been awarded an HPS grant, they may apply to receive a supplement from STC-HPS to help with travel expenses. Please contact Student Assistance Chair Linda Morris for more information.
The 2021 STC Education Grant application process is open. STC student members in good standing may go to the STC website to obtain the forms. The forms should be sent to Linda Morris. Deadline for entries is May 31, 2021. Three $1,000 awards are available and will be presented to the winners at the Fall 2021 STC meeting.
State of Texas (STC) Science Teachers Workshop goes Nationwide
By: Kenneth Krieger, CHP; Chair, National HPS Science Support Committee
One of the purviews of Science Support committee (SSC) is to provide workshop material for chapters who want to hold Science Teachers Workshops (STW). Many Chapters have wanted to hold STW but they do not have the time nor the resources to make their own modules, collect items, find survey meters, and prepare materials to hold a workshop. The Health Physics Society (HPS) has a survey meter kit that chapters can borrow to show teachers some of the concepts of radiation and detection. The teachers, however, will not be able to take possession of the instrument and they will have only the notes and memories to take back to the classroom. The students may not truly benefit from this.
The Science Support Committee (SCC) has collected approved materials that can be downloaded and are based on the Science Teachers Workshop materials from the STC. The SSC reviewed the materials collected and noted some updating was needed, but they approved the materials. The materials consist of a five-module set of PowerPoint presentations on the subjects of Fundamentals, Biology, Radiation in Everyday Life, Waste, and Careers. These modules can be used by the chapter for the presentations and can be shortened or expanded depending on time or regional interest.
The presentations are designed to be a full eight-hour workshop if all modules are used, depending on questions and discussion times. The materials can also be printed and given to the teachers as part of the workshop. Along with these presentations, there are also experiments and lesson plans for different grade levels, videos, and posters that can be printed and displayed in the classroom. All of these items can also be given to the teachers on a flash drive so they can take these back to the classroom.
Part of the package of items the chapter can order and give to the teachers is a Civil Defense CD V-700 survey meter set. For each participating workshop school, the SCC will send:
These items will allow the teacher to conduct a demonstration of some of the concepts they have learned in the workshop. Shipping costs for the meters will be paid for by the SSC through the HPS secretariat. Material downloads and the order form can be found on the “members only” section of the SSC website. Electronic material can be downloaded for each teacher attending the workshop. An article was written to the newsletter on this SSC milestone to let all chapters know they have a place to go to get STW materials.
One of the purviews of Science Support committee (SSC) is to provide workshop material for chapters who want to hold Science Teachers Workshops (STW). Many Chapters have wanted to hold STW but they do not have the time nor the resources to make their own modules, collect items, find survey meters, and prepare materials to hold a workshop. The Health Physics Society (HPS) has a survey meter kit that chapters can borrow to show teachers some of the concepts of radiation and detection. The teachers, however, will not be able to take possession of the instrument and they will have only the notes and memories to take back to the classroom. The students may not truly benefit from this.
The Science Support Committee (SCC) has collected approved materials that can be downloaded and are based on the Science Teachers Workshop materials from the STC. The SSC reviewed the materials collected and noted some updating was needed, but they approved the materials. The materials consist of a five-module set of PowerPoint presentations on the subjects of Fundamentals, Biology, Radiation in Everyday Life, Waste, and Careers. These modules can be used by the chapter for the presentations and can be shortened or expanded depending on time or regional interest.
The presentations are designed to be a full eight-hour workshop if all modules are used, depending on questions and discussion times. The materials can also be printed and given to the teachers as part of the workshop. Along with these presentations, there are also experiments and lesson plans for different grade levels, videos, and posters that can be printed and displayed in the classroom. All of these items can also be given to the teachers on a flash drive so they can take these back to the classroom.
Part of the package of items the chapter can order and give to the teachers is a Civil Defense CD V-700 survey meter set. For each participating workshop school, the SCC will send:
- one CD V-700 (along with strap and original earphones)
- two pocket ionization chambers (PICs)
- one Coleman lantern mantle (while supplies last)
- one charcoal canister (for demonstration only, while supplies last)
- one piece of Fiesta ware
These items will allow the teacher to conduct a demonstration of some of the concepts they have learned in the workshop. Shipping costs for the meters will be paid for by the SSC through the HPS secretariat. Material downloads and the order form can be found on the “members only” section of the SSC website. Electronic material can be downloaded for each teacher attending the workshop. An article was written to the newsletter on this SSC milestone to let all chapters know they have a place to go to get STW materials.
International Radiation Protection Association (IRPA) Congress
By: Latha Vasudevan, Ph.D., CHP; Chair, Public Relations Committee
The 15th International Congress of IRPA originally scheduled for live-in-person meeting in Seoul, South Korea in January 2020, was re-scheduled for January 2021 due to the pandemic. The IRPA 15 Congress, ”Bridging Radiation protection Culture and Science -Widening Public Empathy” was hosted as fully online (virtual) from Jan 18-Feb 5, 2021. The organizers worked diligently to bring the best possible virtual experience to those who were not able to travel to Seoul in January 2021. The first-ever virtual congress was appealing to many radiation protection professionals around the world.
Approximately 760 worldwide participants registered for this virtual meeting 22 including myself participated as United States delegates. The IRPA 15 General Assembly was held on January 14, 2021, as virtual on-line meeting that was mandatory for delegates to attend. The meeting commenced at 11:30 hrs, UTC/GMT (06:30 hrs EST), which was too early for some of delegates from the U.S. The meeting included elections for the executive council members for 2021-2024, elections for choosing the country for hosting IRPA 17 congress. Since the elections were conducted virtually, we all had to go through a practice voting process session on GoToWebinar. Delegates listing, it shows that delegates from 35 countries were represented. Typically for the in-person meeting, we were told that delegates from each country will sit together and jointly decide on the group voting. In this virtual election situation, however, the U.S. delegates formed a Whatsapp group during the voting process in order to achieve a unanimous U.S. vote.
This was quite an interesting experience!
The congress program included plenary, special, enhanced topic, and thematic sessions; refresher courses (for beginners and experts) as well as oral and poster topical sessions. Most of the presentations were recorded ahead of time and uploaded for participants to access on demand during the meeting.
The program at glance can be found at the following link. https://www.irpa2020.org/program/program_09.html?sMenu=pro1.
The IRPA organizing committee is currently discussing the options of publishing the presentations in proceedings. There were quite a lot of interesting topics, and it was obviously hard to attend all the sessions. Maybe, if we had attended in-person, things would have been different.
The 15th International Congress of IRPA originally scheduled for live-in-person meeting in Seoul, South Korea in January 2020, was re-scheduled for January 2021 due to the pandemic. The IRPA 15 Congress, ”Bridging Radiation protection Culture and Science -Widening Public Empathy” was hosted as fully online (virtual) from Jan 18-Feb 5, 2021. The organizers worked diligently to bring the best possible virtual experience to those who were not able to travel to Seoul in January 2021. The first-ever virtual congress was appealing to many radiation protection professionals around the world.
Approximately 760 worldwide participants registered for this virtual meeting 22 including myself participated as United States delegates. The IRPA 15 General Assembly was held on January 14, 2021, as virtual on-line meeting that was mandatory for delegates to attend. The meeting commenced at 11:30 hrs, UTC/GMT (06:30 hrs EST), which was too early for some of delegates from the U.S. The meeting included elections for the executive council members for 2021-2024, elections for choosing the country for hosting IRPA 17 congress. Since the elections were conducted virtually, we all had to go through a practice voting process session on GoToWebinar. Delegates listing, it shows that delegates from 35 countries were represented. Typically for the in-person meeting, we were told that delegates from each country will sit together and jointly decide on the group voting. In this virtual election situation, however, the U.S. delegates formed a Whatsapp group during the voting process in order to achieve a unanimous U.S. vote.
This was quite an interesting experience!
The congress program included plenary, special, enhanced topic, and thematic sessions; refresher courses (for beginners and experts) as well as oral and poster topical sessions. Most of the presentations were recorded ahead of time and uploaded for participants to access on demand during the meeting.
The program at glance can be found at the following link. https://www.irpa2020.org/program/program_09.html?sMenu=pro1.
The IRPA organizing committee is currently discussing the options of publishing the presentations in proceedings. There were quite a lot of interesting topics, and it was obviously hard to attend all the sessions. Maybe, if we had attended in-person, things would have been different.
State of Texas Chapter of the Health Physics Society goes virtual in 2020
By: Erich Fruchtnicht, STC Treasurer, and Latha Vasudevan, Chair, Public Relations Committee
So much has changed in the wake of COVID-19. One positive to come from the past year was the move to an online conference platform called GoToWebinar, which enabled chapter member participation in our annual meeting to match past conferences.
The GoToWebinar virtual platform took a little work to set up and practice sessions were offered to the presenters two days before the actual meeting. A few tech support issues were encountered in the initial opening of the conference and with some of the presenters throughout the day, but overall, the conference was well-received.
An added benefit to the STC-HPS move to virtual conference was the ability to have presenters from across the state of Texas, as well as nationally. Presenters who would otherwise have had to travel great distances to be with us, could now do so with the click of a button.
The meeting had 18 presenters from TDSHS, Baylor Scott & White Healthcare, Krueger-Gilbert Health Physics, NIST, UT Austin, Texas A&M, U of H, UTMB Galveston, and even our National HPS discussed relevant topics including how COVID-19 has impacted university and health care health physics operations.
The highlight of the meeting was the National HPS president-elect John Cardarelli, who presented his award- winning paper “It’s time to move beyond the linear non-threshold theory for low dose radiation protection.” He also spoke about the HPS strategic goals and imperatives and how HPS is striving to serve its members.
STCHPS presented four scholarships to deserving students Alex Perry, Audrey Nguyen, Sena Dalak, and Alfredo Cortez. In addition, Andrew Rosenstrom, Ethan Asano, and Jackson Wagner all received awards for student presentations. STC-HPS is pleased to be able to continue our mission of supporting students with awards and scholarships during the pandemic.
All-in-all, with Continuing Education Units (CEUs) approved and awarded to attendees at the conference as is customary, the virtual conference was as close to an in-person STC-HPS conference as could be achieved. STC-HPS is considering making virtual conferences a regular part of our educational offerings going forward and is considering recording tech sessions at future conferences. Much remains to be seen as conference trends and the pandemic continue to evolve in 2021.
This is what Doug Johnson, STCHPS President-Elect had to say about the meeting: “The State of Texas Chapter, sponsored by COVID-19, entered the world of virtual meetings with a bang and not a sneeze. Using internal resources and lubricated by ample perspiration, we hosted 48 participants and top, I mean top, quality presentations. After an initial hiccup (no coughing) we went virtually (get it?) into the late afternoon.”
Many thanks to the STC-HPS Executive Council and volunteers for a successful conference -- Matt Amen, Doug Johnson, Tracy Tipping, Jennifer Cerecero, Erich Fruchtnicht, Scott "Nick" Nichelson, Otu Inyang, Nina Garcia-Gutierrez, Amanda Sullivan, Sandra Ramirez, Latha Vasudevan, Ken Krieger, Linda Morris, John Hageman, and Alana Woods.
STCHPS is planning for a virtual meeting on April 24, 2021, to host student presentations. See you all at the next meeting.
So much has changed in the wake of COVID-19. One positive to come from the past year was the move to an online conference platform called GoToWebinar, which enabled chapter member participation in our annual meeting to match past conferences.
The GoToWebinar virtual platform took a little work to set up and practice sessions were offered to the presenters two days before the actual meeting. A few tech support issues were encountered in the initial opening of the conference and with some of the presenters throughout the day, but overall, the conference was well-received.
An added benefit to the STC-HPS move to virtual conference was the ability to have presenters from across the state of Texas, as well as nationally. Presenters who would otherwise have had to travel great distances to be with us, could now do so with the click of a button.
The meeting had 18 presenters from TDSHS, Baylor Scott & White Healthcare, Krueger-Gilbert Health Physics, NIST, UT Austin, Texas A&M, U of H, UTMB Galveston, and even our National HPS discussed relevant topics including how COVID-19 has impacted university and health care health physics operations.
The highlight of the meeting was the National HPS president-elect John Cardarelli, who presented his award- winning paper “It’s time to move beyond the linear non-threshold theory for low dose radiation protection.” He also spoke about the HPS strategic goals and imperatives and how HPS is striving to serve its members.
STCHPS presented four scholarships to deserving students Alex Perry, Audrey Nguyen, Sena Dalak, and Alfredo Cortez. In addition, Andrew Rosenstrom, Ethan Asano, and Jackson Wagner all received awards for student presentations. STC-HPS is pleased to be able to continue our mission of supporting students with awards and scholarships during the pandemic.
All-in-all, with Continuing Education Units (CEUs) approved and awarded to attendees at the conference as is customary, the virtual conference was as close to an in-person STC-HPS conference as could be achieved. STC-HPS is considering making virtual conferences a regular part of our educational offerings going forward and is considering recording tech sessions at future conferences. Much remains to be seen as conference trends and the pandemic continue to evolve in 2021.
This is what Doug Johnson, STCHPS President-Elect had to say about the meeting: “The State of Texas Chapter, sponsored by COVID-19, entered the world of virtual meetings with a bang and not a sneeze. Using internal resources and lubricated by ample perspiration, we hosted 48 participants and top, I mean top, quality presentations. After an initial hiccup (no coughing) we went virtually (get it?) into the late afternoon.”
Many thanks to the STC-HPS Executive Council and volunteers for a successful conference -- Matt Amen, Doug Johnson, Tracy Tipping, Jennifer Cerecero, Erich Fruchtnicht, Scott "Nick" Nichelson, Otu Inyang, Nina Garcia-Gutierrez, Amanda Sullivan, Sandra Ramirez, Latha Vasudevan, Ken Krieger, Linda Morris, John Hageman, and Alana Woods.
STCHPS is planning for a virtual meeting on April 24, 2021, to host student presentations. See you all at the next meeting.
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National HPS “virtual” annual meeting September 2020
By: Latha Vasudevan, Ph.D., CHP; Chair, Public Relations Committee
Conducted through the GoToWebinar software platform, the HPS Virtual Meeting took place over seven weeks from September 10 through October 21, 2020. The first special session on diversity and inclusion was free, and the topics were:
The seven-week program included technical sessions, Professional Enrichment Programs (PEPs) and special sessions. HPS offered continuing education credits for participants based on hours attended. Each workshop was scheduled for three hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Several STC-HPS members attended the virtual meeting. Latha Vasudevan presented a paper on October 6, 2020, that was well received.
Videos of the sessions and PEPs are still available with a registration fee.
Conducted through the GoToWebinar software platform, the HPS Virtual Meeting took place over seven weeks from September 10 through October 21, 2020. The first special session on diversity and inclusion was free, and the topics were:
- Diversity and Inclusion in HPS
- Radioactive Representation--Blacks in Radiation Protection
- Fostering Diversity and Inclusion in Health Physics with a panel discussion on Diversity and Inclusivity Strategies in Health Physics
The seven-week program included technical sessions, Professional Enrichment Programs (PEPs) and special sessions. HPS offered continuing education credits for participants based on hours attended. Each workshop was scheduled for three hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Several STC-HPS members attended the virtual meeting. Latha Vasudevan presented a paper on October 6, 2020, that was well received.
Videos of the sessions and PEPs are still available with a registration fee.