Experts on Chernobyl Disaster Anniversary

Eduardo Farfan

Professor of Nuclear Engineering

Nuclear disaster risk assessment, environmental recovery following radiological contamination

• Applies environmental and safety lessons from the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear accidents to develop practical approaches for radiological risk assessment, environmental monitoring, and post-accident recovery strategies..

• Investigates the transport, dispersion, and long-term behavior of radionuclides in the environment, evaluating their impacts on ecosystems, infrastructure, and human populations over time.

• Conducted radiation monitoring and environmental measurements within the Chernobyl exclusion zone, analyzing contamination levels and contributing to the understanding of long-term radiological and ecological consequences of the disaster.

 Alex Sich

Senior Lecturer of Physics

Nuclear safety, radiation

• Was the first Westerner permitted to live and conduct research within the Chernobyl exclusion zone, where he investigated post-disaster events at Chernobyl’s Unit 4 and challenged the false account given by the Soviet Union.

• Served as the Department of Energy’s representative on nuclear safety in Ukraine and as a project coordinator for an international consortium that oversaw the decommissioning of Unit 4.

• Worked as a senior specialist for an international consortium that engaged former Soviet weapons-of-mass-destruction scientists to convert their expertise to civilian applications.

Da Hu

Assistant Professor of Engineering in Smart Infrastructure

Disaster damage assessment and recovery

• Focuses on disaster response and infrastructure resilience, with an emphasis on post-disaster damage assessment and situational awareness.

• Uses drone imagery to reduce the time needed to detect and categorize the extent of damage to buildings after disasters.

• Develops data-driven approaches to support rapid decision-making and recovery in disasters and large-scale infrastructure failures.

Dan Ferreira

Assistant Chair of the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology

Soil science, soil health

• Conducted research on soil contamination in Fukushima for 10 years following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster.

• Can discuss differences between the nuclear accident in Fukushima that was caused by natural disasters, an earthquake and a tsunami, and the man-made Chernobyl catastrophe that resulted from safety procedure violations and design flaws in the reactor.

• Advocates for farmers in Fukushima whose livelihoods are still being impacted by the stigma that persists about the area's soil, even though it has been nurtured back to productivity.