Our People

Our lab includes undergraduate and graduate students from around the world with backgrounds spanning national laboratories, radiation safety, military service, and more. Members represent a range of disciplines, including Health Physics, Medical Physics, and Biomedical Health Sciences. Meet our current lab members below and learn more about the research driving our work forward.

Principal Investigator

Aaron Specht

Assistant Professor
aspecht@purdue.edu | 765-496-0770 | Google Scholar

Dr. Aaron Specht is an Assistant Professor in the School of Health Sciences. He received his B.S. from Purdue in Honors Physics and Ph.D. from Purdue in Medical and Health Physics. He completed postdoctoral training at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health where he remains active as part of their Trace Metals Laboratory utilizing his x-ray fluorescence devices. His research focuses on the development, application, and understanding of exposure assessment for elemental and radiation exposures in environmental and occupational health studies. He has developed instrumentation capable of in-field or in-lab measures that utilize a non-destructive, non-invasive, and cost-effective elemental quantification method using x-ray fluorescence. This includes everything from measuring nail, bone, or blood to determine exposure to a human or in animal studies to measuring soil, ash, or air filters to determine ongoing exposures at particular sites. He has many interesting collaborative projects ranging from typical studies in hospital settings around the globe to measuring condors on the cliffs of the Grand Canyon.