How to become Nuclear Monitoring Technician in 2024

Nuclear Monitoring Technician Collect and test samples to monitor results of nuclear experiments and contamination of humans, facilities, and environment.

Nuclear Monitoring Technician is Also Know as

In different settings, Nuclear Monitoring Technician is titled as

  • Health Physics Technician (HP Tech)
  • Nuclear Chemistry Technician
  • Radiation Control Technician (Radcon Technician)
  • Radiation Protection Specialist (RP Specialist)
  • Radiation Protection Technician (RPT)
  • Radiation Technician
  • Radiochemical Technician

Education and Training of Nuclear Monitoring Technician

Nuclear Monitoring Technician is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Nuclear Monitoring Technician

Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.

Education Required for Nuclear Monitoring Technician

Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.

Degrees Related to Nuclear Monitoring Technician

Training Required for Nuclear Monitoring Technician

Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Nuclear Monitoring Technician in different industries are

What Do Nuclear Monitoring Technician do?

  • Calculate safe radiation exposure times for personnel using plant contamination readings and prescribed safe levels of radiation.
  • Provide initial response to abnormal events or to alarms from radiation monitoring equipment.
  • Monitor personnel to determine the amounts and intensities of radiation exposure.
  • Inform supervisors when individual exposures or area radiation levels approach maximum permissible limits.
  • Instruct personnel in radiation safety procedures and demonstrate use of protective clothing and equipment.
  • Determine intensities and types of radiation in work areas, equipment, or materials, using radiation detectors or other instruments.
  • Collect samples of air, water, gases, or solids to determine radioactivity levels of contamination.
  • Set up equipment that automatically detects area radiation deviations and test detection equipment to ensure its accuracy.
  • Determine or recommend radioactive decontamination procedures, according to the size and nature of equipment and the degree of contamination.
  • Decontaminate objects by cleaning with soap or solvents or by abrading with wire brushes, buffing wheels, or sandblasting machines.
  • Calibrate and maintain chemical instrumentation sensing elements and sampling system equipment, using calibration instruments and hand tools.
  • Enter data into computers to record characteristics of nuclear events or to locate coordinates of particles.
  • Operate manipulators from outside cells to move specimens into or out of shielded containers, to remove specimens from cells, or to place specimens on benches or equipment work stations.
  • Prepare reports describing contamination tests, material or equipment decontaminated, or methods used in decontamination processes.
  • Confer with scientists directing projects to determine significant events to monitor during tests.
  • Immerse samples in chemical compounds to prepare them for testing.
  • Brief workers on radiation levels in work areas.
  • Analyze samples, such as air or water samples, for contaminants or other elements.
  • Place radioactive waste, such as sweepings or broken sample bottles, into containers for shipping or disposal.

Qualities of Good Nuclear Monitoring Technician

  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.

Tools Used by Nuclear Monitoring Technician

  • Air purifying respirators
  • Air sampling devices
  • Airline respirators
  • Alpha air monitors
  • Alpha/beta counting systems
  • Alpha/beta surface contamination monitors
  • Area gamma monitors
  • Atmosphere supplying respirators
  • Contamination probes
  • Cryogenic microcalorimeters
  • Cryostats
  • Desktop computers
  • Digital ratemeters
  • Digital signal analyzers
  • Digital spectrum analyzers
  • Dose rate monitors
  • Electron microscopes
  • Gamma ray detectors
  • Gamma ray spectrometers
  • Geiger-Muller counters
  • Ionization chambers
  • Liquid scintillation counters
  • Multichannel analyzers
  • Neutron detectors
  • Neutron dose-rate meters
  • Neutron spectrometers
  • Nuclear moisture/density gauges
  • Personal computers
  • Portable data collectors
  • Portable spectroscopes
  • Portable survey radiation meters
  • Portal monitors
  • Pressure demand respirators
  • Proportional counters
  • Protective coveralls
  • Protective gloves
  • Protective shoe covers
  • Radiological detectors
  • Self-contained breathing apparatus
  • Sodium Iodide NaI scintillation detectors
  • Thermoluminescent dosimeters
  • Tritium/Noble gas monitors
  • Whole body counters

Technology Skills required for Nuclear Monitoring Technician

  • AVEVA InTouch HMI
  • Connectivity software
  • Gamma waste assay system GWAS
  • Google Compute Engine (GCE)
  • Microsoft Azure software
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Windows
  • Microsoft Windows Server
  • Microsoft Word
  • Oracle Java
  • Radiological assessment display and control system RADACS
  • RESRAD
  • Structured query language SQL
  • Supervisory control and data acquisition SCADA software
  • Word processing software