Michael Corry Email and Phone Number

Michael’s role as an Environmental Monitoring Officer is to characterise ANSTO’s airborne radiological effluent releases and wider environmental impacts, allowing ANSTO to meet its regulatory and environmental reporting commitments. Michael is responsible for scheduled sample collections, radiological analyses, data interpretation and weekly reporting. Michael also assists in responding to environmental events, as well as requests for non-routine monitoring and commercial analyses.

Michael was part of ANSTO’s 2013 Graduate Development Program. The two year program involved three rotations throughout different divisions within ANSTO. Michael's first rotation was with ANSTO’s Environmental Monitoring team. His role was to collect, prepare and analyse environmental media from the local area and assess the impact of ANSTO’s authorised emissions on potential environmental exposure pathways. He was also heavily involved in designing and implementing a study to investigate mine tailings dust re-suspension for the research component of his first rotation.Michael’s second rotation is within the Institute for Environmental Research, a centre of research excellence in the southern hemisphere for understanding how environmental systems function and interact, and the impact that humans are having on the environment. Michael is currently working on two projects, the first of which involves using radiotracers and autoradiography to determine the internal accumulation kinetics of heavy metals such as cadmium by Macrobrachium australiense, a species of freshwater prawn. His second project is investigating the sediment biogeochemical processes occurring since the late 1800’s in Lake King, Victoria to better understand the recurring noxious blooms of Nodularia spumigena. Techniques being used for the investigation include optical and radiographic imaging as well as XRF elemental profiles using an ITRAX core scanner, laser particle size analysis and lead-210 and radio carbon dating.

PASS, Peer Assisted Study Sessions is a program run by the University of Newcastle to support students undertaking notoriously difficult subjects. Michael’s role as a PASS leader was to conduct group study sessions and act as a mentor to students involved in the first year Statistics and Mathematical courses. As part of his role, Michael developed session plans and group activities that focussed on installing the fundamental subject knowledge required to guide students to a better understanding of their associated course.