Joseph Neilson
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About
I am a physicist, working on designing, configuring, testing, and operating radiation detection and measurement equipment.
My work helps to ensure nuclear technologies are used safely; helps to reduce the cost of dealing with radioactive waste thus improving our ability to use nuclear power as a low-carbon power source to tackle climate change; and supports other uses of nuclear technology such as in medicine.
Some of my work also contributes to research in fusion energy, which will one day be a much-needed source of clean energy to power humanity for generations to come.
Joseph’s Career Stories
In layperson terms, what do you actually do at work?
I use radiation detectors to measure many different kinds of radiation and radioactivity. I'm involved in lots of different projects - sometimes I'm measuring radioactive waste to find what radioactive things are inside and therefore how it can be safely disposed. Sometimes I'm measuring radiation from nuclear fusion experiments to better understand fusion science and eventually help lead to a design for a fusion energy powerplant. I work in a number of different places around a nuclear site, sometimes sitting in a warehouse beside a detector system measuring drums, sometimes in a laboratory measuring small items, and sometimes behind a computer doing data analysis and writing reports.
When you were a student, did you do anything outside of school to build skills or get knowledge that has helped your career?
I did lots of different extracurricular things that have all helped in different ways, although to pull out a single example, learning a bit of GNU/Linux, programming, and electronics while messing around with making hobby projects with kit like a Raspberry Pi was fun extracurricular self-study, and also really quite helpful - I've quite often found myself drawing on technical skills I first learned back then, although I've since refined many of those skills with more recent formal education and training.