Bioastronautics Symposium: Radiation Exposure in Space, presented by Hopkins at Home

Presented by Hopkins at Home, the JHU Human Spaceflight Lab.
Hopkins at Home and bioastronautics@hopkins, led by Dr. Mark Shelhamer. This session will feature speakers Dr. Shona "Robin" Elgart, an element scientist at NASA's Space Radiation Element; and Dr. Jefferey Chancellor, a scientist and expert consultant on radiation effects for manned spaceflight and the aerospace industry.
Robin Elgart is the element scientist for NASA’s Space Radiation Element (SRE). She received a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a doctorate in biomedical physics from the University of California at Los Angeles in the laboratory of Dr. Keisuke Iwamoto. Her dissertation focused on characterizing the DNA damage response following low-dose radiological exams in patient samples. Before joining SRE in April 2020, Elgart served as a subject matter expert specializing in space radiation health risks for NASA’s Space Radiation Analysis Group, or SRAG, as well as a Space Environment Officer for Mission Control Center in Houston.
Elgart has more than 15 years of research experience across multiple life-science disciplines, including medical physics and radiation biology. Her experience with SRAG included six years of directing and managing reviews of radiation health outcome evidence, translating research findings into evidence-based operational strategies, and analyzing space radiation protection and risk for the Radiation Health Office. She also has four years of mission operations experience as a space environment officer and radiation mission manager. As the element scientist for SRE, Elgart’s primary objective is to develop and execute a robust applied research strategy to meet the agency’s goal to safely put the first woman on the Moon and the first humans on Mars.
Jeff Chancellor is a scientist and expert consultant on radiation effects for human spaceflight and the aerospace industry. He is currently Assistant Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Louisiana State University and the Chief Technical Officer at Atlantis Industries.
His research utilizes 3D Monte Carlo modeling techniques and high-performance computer platforms to study heavy charged particle interactions with soft tissue and condensed matter following space radiation exposures. At LSU, Jeff is the Director of the Space Radiation Transport & Applied Nuclear Physics (SpaRTAN) Laboratory. The SpaRTAN lab’s research is focused on applications of how heavy ion radiation interacts with soft and condensed matter for ground-based analogs, manned spaceflight vehicle structure, shielding, and clinical healthcare. The SpaRTAN lab utilizes high-performance, multi-core computers and sophisticated numerical techniques for studying complex dynamics that are otherwise difficult to mimic in a laboratory setting. Prior to LSU he was a research scientist in Helmut Katzgraber’s Computational Physics Group at Texas A&M University.
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