Radioactive contamination: knowledge that can save lives

Radioactive contamination: knowledge that can save lives | AGH SCIENCE meeting no. 38

How are radioactive contaminations monitored? What are possible scenarios of events that can lead to radioactive contamination? How to behave to reduce our exposure to harmful radiation?

Radioactive contamination: knowledge that can save lives

What is a possible scenario of an incident that leads to radioactive contamination in our neighbourhood? What signs should we look out for and what should we do when it happens – lock ourselves in our homes or run away? What is in the hands of authorities and what can we, civilians, do?

Professor Jerzy W. Mietelski of the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences answers questions that many of us have about the construction of a Polish nuclear power plant and the war in Ukraine in a conversation with journalist Ewa Szkurłat.

Professor Jerzy W. Mietelski
He obtained his Master’s degree in Physics from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He has been working in the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Krakow (now an institute part of the Polish Academy of Sciences) since 1986. It is also where he defended his doctorate. He was awarded the title of Professor of Physics in 2012. Head of the Department of Nuclear Physical Chemistry in the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is a long-standing member of the Scientific Councils of the Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, one of Poland's representatives in the OECD nuclear safety commission. In 2011, he served as an IAEA expert on a mission to Kuwait. He is a member of the Committee on Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He deals with experimental nuclear physics and radiochemistry, in particular the applications of gamma, beta, and alpha radiation spectrometry and radiochemical analytical methods in environmental radioactivity research and radioecology. He supervised 12 doctoral theses. He is an author and co-author of more than 150 academic papers, cited more than 4.5 thousand times.

Ewa Szkurłat
Journalist, winner of the Polish Pulitzer (for an investigative piece in 2007) and more than 60 Polish journalism awards. Her reports represented Polish Radio at the Prix Europa international festival in Berlin and the Premios Ondas in Barcelona. Nominated twice for the Ryszard Kapuściński Award. In Radio Kraków, she deals with science, ecology, and renewable energy sources.