Radiation protection aims to assess, manage and control exposures to ionizing radiation of workers, members of the public, as well as to support maintaining the safe operation of nuclear facilities. The field in addition to being interdisciplinary, requires continuous improvement whether in response to nuclear incidents or in support of expanding range of new nuclear activities and technical solutions. The Radiation Protection Department of the Centre for Energy Research has been involved in experimental research in the practical application of radiation protection for decades and also conducts numerous scientific research in related fields. The PhD candidate may join one of the novel researches conducted in the disciplines listed below. The PhD topic will be clarified in cooperation with the student after the application.

a) Development of a method for using real-time meteorological measurements for on-line atmospheric dispersion and dose calculation:

• Development of methods for on-line computation of atmospheric dispersion and dose calculation related to accidental release of radioactive materials into the atmosphere, in particular for estimation of radiological exposure to individuals living around nuclear installations.
• Investigation of the requirements for meteorological measurements to use for atmospheric dispersion modelling, development of the application of a SODAR meteorological measurement system for automatic, real-time sampling.

b) Refinement of methods for confirming compliance with safety-related acceptance criteria for accidental releases:

• Refinement of the atmospheric dispersion model and the methods for external and internal exposure pathway calculations used in the CARC (Calculating Atmospheric Release Criteria) calculation tool.
• Demonstration of the applicability of the enhanced software for confirmation of compliance with acceptance criteria.

c) Development of methods for external personal dosimetry of individuals occupationally exposed to radiation:

• Assessment of uncertainties in the measurement and calibration of external personal dosemeters, and development of uncertainty reduction methods.
• Investigation of the ability to take into account the diverse characteristics (heterogeneous and mixed gamma and neutron radiation fields, variant energy and direction characteristics) of workplace fields in the measurement and calibration processes.

d) Uncertainty reduction in internal dose estimations:

• Determination of uncertainties of measurements and dose calculations used for internal dose estimation, and development of uncertainty reducing approaches.
• Examination of internal dose estimations based on indirect, radiochemical measurement methods, and investigation of the effects of the chemical characteristics of radioisotopes on the biokinetic models.