Katie Cook

Center for Nuclear Security Science and Policy Initiatives

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station

Katie Cook

Katie_Cook_profile_picture

NSSPI Graduate
Nuclear Engineering

M.S., 2019

Research Group: Combatting Nuclear Terrorism

Short Bio:

Katie Cook earned her Master’s of Science in Nuclear Engineering in May of 2019. She worked with Dr. Marianno on analyzing Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) dogs in a radioactive contaminated environment. USAR dogs are an essential emergency response component, where each dog can perform the equivalent work of 20 to 30 people. However, should any of these types of radiological events occur, the handlers of these dogs would have a difficult choice to make as there are little guidelines and protective equipment that could be utilized by USAR dogs in this type of environment. For this research, a room was sprayed with fluorine-18, and a dog executed minor search activities in this contaminated area. Using a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner both internal and external contamination from the dog was localized and quantified. Overall, this research is proving a viable method to simulate a radioactive environment safe enough for a dog to participate in but strong enough to create detectable contamination. This will allow researchers to gain insight into health concerns that may arise if a USAR dog took part in a real-world contamination event. Previously, Cook received her bachelors of science degree in 2014 from Georgia Institute of Technology in Nuclear and Radiological Engineering with a Chinese minor. After graduating, she joined Emerson Electric in their “Engineers in Leadership” program where she gained diverse experiences working in different functional groups including engineering design, logistics, project management, and marketing as well as international experience working and living abroad in Singapore. After finishing her Master’s degree at Texas A&M, she went to work at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

NSSPI Publications:

  1. C.M. Marianno, K.M. Cook, "The Use of PET-CT to Evaluate Internal and External Contamination on a Canine Exposed to a Contaminated Environment", 64th Annual Meeting of the Health Physics Society, Orlando, Florida, 7-11 July 2019.rn

  2. J. King, S. Chirayath, E. Aboud, V. Bautista, P. Behne, H. Boo, R. Brownfield, J. Chisholm, K. Cook, A. Edwin, H. Kistle, P. O’Neal, E. Ordonez, M. Ramirez, S. Ricketts, R. Suh, "Safety Evaluation of a Spent Fuel Dry-Storage Canister with Various Fill Materials", Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 120 (2019).

  3. A. Hargraves, K. Cook, C. Marianno, and V. Sridhar, "Case Report: PET Imaging of Dog Exposed to Artificially Created Search and Rescue Set-up Contaminated with FDG", Open Journal of Clinical and Medical Case Reports, 5, 14 (2019).

  4. K. Cook, "Analyzing Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Dogs in a Radioactive Contaminated Environment", M.S. Thesis, Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX (2019).

  5. C. Marianno , M. Smith, K. Cook , "Analysis of Radionuclide Deposition Ratios from the Fukushima-Daiichi Incident", Health Physics, 114, 1 (2018).