Joseph Rustick, Ph.D. Email & Phone Number

Washington, District Of Columbia

Office of Radiation and Indoor Air (ORIA)

Washington D.C. Metro Area

AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at EPA Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, Radiation Protection Division

• Reviewed past practices related to waste exhumation and retrieval at commercial, US Department of Energy, and international Low level radioactive waste disposal sites
• Investigated retrieval technologies and methods, best practices, worker protections, and lessons learned from current and past exhumation campaigns of disposed radioactive waste in trenches and waste tanks
• Used gathered findings to advise future actions related to stored waste at the West Valley Demonstration Project in western New York

• Evaluated model confidence for LLW disposal facility performance assessments.
• Consideration of a nuclear waste disposal facility as an integrated system of three components: site environmental characteristics, waste characteristics, and engineered barriers.
• Developed corrosion scenarios based on disposal site data and historical studies of steel buried in soil to model steel waste package degradation in disposal facilities under a variety of corrosion conditions.
• Developed a waste package corrosion and leachate model to assess the impacts of leachate buildup and release within a disposal facility based on changes to facility infiltration related to barrier performance.
• Overall research goal of creating a quantitative risk informed decision-making methodology to determine engineered barrier and waste package designs for a given waste stream on a site-specific basis for radioactive.

• Graduate Teaching Assistant for Transportation Systems Design within the Vanderbilt Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Assisted with procuring new class materials and designing new lessons on pedestrian and residential development design
• Evaluated student performance on homework and tests throughout the semester

Germantown, Maryland

• Worked on DOE LLW performance assessments within the Office of Environmental Management (EM) at DOE Headquarters, Office of Regulatory Compliance, leading to a conference paper at the 2011 Waste Management Symposia
• Investigated the benefits and drawbacks of unlined vs. lined engineered barriers for future LLW disposal cells by incorporating previous DOE research with data from operating waste burial sites
• Reviewed DOE performance assessments for the major radioactive waste management facilities across the DOE complex

Germantown, MD

• Worked on DOE LLW performance assessments within the Office of Regulatory Compliance, leading to a conference paper at the 2010 Waste Management Symposia
• Investigated the benefits and drawbacks of unlined vs. lined engineered barriers for future LLW disposal cells by incorporating previous DOE research with data from operating waste burial sites
• Assisted the Low-Level Waste Disposal Facility Federal Review Group (LFRG) with their August 2009 site review of the Saltstone Disposal Facility at the Savannah River Site

Canaan, NY

Installed sprinkler and irrigation systems for residential and commercial customers; worked 5 summers from May through August

Kursk Region, Russian Federation

• Taught English classes for students enrolled as English translation majors
• Taught 5 classes per week with class grade levels ranging from 2nd to 4th year students
• Developed lesson plans and course materials; topics included conversational English and literature, American business structure and corporate English, and American culture

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Nuclear Environmental Engineering

Activities and Societies: American Nuclear Society - Student Chapter President; Graduate Student Council - President; Vp of Social Affairs

Master'S Degree, Nuclear Environmental Engineering

B.S., Environmental Engineering

Activities and Societies: Society of Engineering Professionals, Crew, Orchestra

Environmental Engineering