Student View: Harvesting rare isotopes
Samridhi Satija is a third-year doctoral candidate in the Department of Chemistry at Michigan State University and the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. She is a recipient of an Alfred J. and Ruth Zeits Endowed Fellowship.
“I got interested in nuclear chemistry — radiochemistry and isotope harvesting, in
particular — only after I joined MSU. Once my advisor, Dr. Greg Severin, introduced
me to the project I would be working on, there was no going back for me. I had no
prior background in this, but even then, I could sense how big of an impact isotope
harvesting would make to nuclear science in general, and the Facility for Rare Isotope
Beams in particular. I just didn’t want to miss out on being a part of it, and this
feeling has only strengthened with time. After all, who wouldn’t want to work at the
world’s leading rare isotope facility?!
“The opportunities I got by working at a leading rare isotope research facility are
immense, and I get to learn from the leaders in nuclear chemistry, nuclear physics
and engineering on a daily basis. FRIB will produce rare isotopes that have applications
in fields as varied as medicine, materials science, astrophysics and environmental
studies to name a few.”
