This year’s nine ARAMP project students have just submitted their project plans, marking an exciting milestone as they turn their ideas into investigations across radiation therapy, medical imaging, detector materials, and reactor physics.
With their research questions taking shape and a busy year ahead, here is a look at what they will be working on.
Medical Physics and Radiation Therapy
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Maisy Mayhew (BSc) – Optimising spatially fractionated radiation therapy: Maisy is coupling Geant4 simulations with genetic algorithms to investigate spatially fractionated radiation therapy and explore how computational optimisation can inform treatment design. (Supervisor: Jenny Spiga).
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Alex Tang (BSc) – Dose enhancement in proton therapy: In collaboration with The Christie proton therapy beam line in Manchester, Alex is investigating how dose-enhancing materials influence energy deposition in proton therapy, with the aim of better understanding their potential for targeted treatments. (Supervisor: Jenny Spiga).
Radiation Detection and Medical Imaging
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Dare Mccloskey-Tunstall (BSc) – Machine learning for gamma event identification: Dare is investigating machine learning methods for identifying gamma-ray event shapes in pixellated cadmium zinc telluride (CdZnTe) detectors. (Supervisors: Andrew Farnworth and Sarah Bugby)
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Rhys Cooper (BSc) – Dual-energy CT imaging: Rhys is exploring how CT measurements at two X-ray energies can help distinguish materials and provide additional imaging information, using a ray tracing simulation package (DECTSim) that has been developed by Loughborough students over a number of years. (Supervisor: Sarah Bugby).
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Sea Ocak (BSc) and Alex Hyde (BSc) – Polymer nanocomposites for ultra-sensitive radiation detection: Sea and Alex are both experimentally investigating polymer nanocomposites for ultra-sensitive X-ray and gamma-ray detection, exploring their potential as radiation detector materials. (Supervisor: Anna Kusmartseva)
Reactor Physics and Shielding
- Tom Le Fevre (BSc) – Modelling secondary triton interactions: A collaborative project with UKAEA, Tom is using Geant4 to model secondary triton interactions in a pebble-based breeder blanket. (Supervisor: Jenny Spiga).
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Fraser Cooke (MPhys) – Shielding designs and material comparisons: Working with Rolls Royce, Fraser is investigating shielding designs and comparing models in Geant4 and MOOSE. (Supervisor: Jenny Spiga)
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Andrew (BSc) – Burnable absorbers: A collaborative project with Rolls Royce, Andrew is investigating burnable absorbers and their role in controlling reactivity in nuclear reactors. (Supervisor: Sarah Bugby)
We look forward to sharing more of their work as the projects develop!