Christina Jiang successfully defended her thesis entitled “Applying Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) to Acess Air Pollution with Spanish Moss (Tillandsia Usneoides) as a Bioindicator in the Low Country of The Savannah River Basin” on March 16th, 2023.

In this study, samples of Spanish moss were collected from the Savannah River Basin area. After the samples were irradiated with reactors, radioisotopes were measured by High Purity Germanium detectors, and gamma spectra were collected using Canberra’s Genie 2000 software. The experimental results indicate that: (1) Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis can accurately determine the heavy elements in Spanish moss; (2) The concentrations of heavy metals in the samples of Spanish moss have clear correlations with local sources of air pollution in the region of the Savannah River Basin which proves that Spanish moss can serve as an effective bioindicator of air pollution.

The committee includes Dr. Zaijing Sun (chair), Dr. Steen Madsen, Dr. Carson Riland, and Dr. Alexander Barzilov.

Christina will start her new job as a research scientist at the Remote Sensing Laboratory of the Nevada National Security Site next week. Congratulations to Christina!