Research Assistant
Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA

Jessica’s role, along with a few predecessors at WHOI, has been to run the InFORM samples through the gamma spectrometer at the Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity (CMER) that is used for detecting the activity of the Cesium radionuclides in our citizen science samples.

Also working on Our Radioactive Ocean, the InFORM counterpart in the US, Jessica hopes that by working on these projects she will learn new methods and analysis techniques. She hopes that the public will learn that, while the meltdowns at Fukushima were disasterous, the levels of radiation observed on the west coast are very low and do not pose a considerable health risk. She also would love to thank the citizen scientists for their participation in making this research possible.

Jessica credits her love of science to her parents who encouraged her to get outside and make observations of nature. She was hooked after her first year geology class  in college that explained the environment around during field trips to local beaches and natural areas. When not in the lab, she can be found sailing her live-aboard, travelling, and gardening.