AIKEN, S.C. - An international organization has recognized EM Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) Fellow Technical Advisor Michael Brisson for his leadership in establishing standards for air quality and nuclear fuel-cycle analysis.
Brisson received the ASTM International 2017 Award of Merit, which includes the title of Fellow. It’s ASTM’s highest award for members who help develop standards in their industry.
ASTM, which stands for American Society for Testing and Materials International, is an international standards development organization. Its 140 technical committees and more than 30,000 members develop standards in a wide variety of applications and fields. The standards developed by ASTM are used around the world and incorporated into contracts, plans, codes, regulations and laws as guidance for use in a variety of fields and disciplines.
“Being a member of ASTM has given me a sense of fulfillment, and being recognized for my contributions has been rewarding," said Brisson. “ASTM’s tag line is ‘Helping our world work better,’ and SRNL shares the common goal in developing standards to be used worldwide."
Brisson first became involved with ASTM in 2005 while conducting samples and analyzing trace-level beryllium at SRNL. At that time, DOE was implementing requirements for the Chronic Beryllium Disease Prevention Program. Seeing a need to identify a consensus standard for analytical methods, he helped establish a method of analyzing radioactively contaminated beryllium samples that SRNL continues to use today.
Brisson has chaired numerous ASTM committees, including the 500-member air quality working group. He serves in leadership positions for the nuclear fuel-cycle committee as chairman of the subcommittee on methods of test for nuclear fuel-cycle and as vice chairman of the subcommittee on quality assurance, statistical applications and reference materials. He is a member of ASTM’s committee of standards, responsible for review and approval of all technical committee recommendations for actions on standards.
In his 12-year membership, Brisson has been the principal author of six new ASTM standards and has contributed major revisions to 10 others. The recipient of several other ASTM awards, Brisson was named President’s Leadership Award winner in 2009.
Over his 28-year tenure at SRNL, Brisson has been involved with spectroscopy, the study of the interaction between light and matter. He provided support for laboratory quality assurance and accreditation, and continues to serve as a subject-matter expert in trace measurement of beryllium.
Brisson is leading an international team in revising a standard on the preparation of working reference materials in nuclear fuel-cycle laboratories. This project will provide greater quality for safeguards measurements while reducing the demand for certified reference materials.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
