Arturo Vargas

Dr. A. Vargas is a nuclear engineer, with more than 20 years of experience in radionuclide metrology and instrument development. Currently, he is the head of the Radioactivity and the Environment research group of the INTE (http://inte.upc.edu/) at the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC) and is the responsible of the environmental radioactivity subgroup included in the recognized research group “Dosimetry and Medical Radiation Physics” (SGR846). The associate facilities to this group are: the Atmospheric Radiological Surveillance Station (XESCRA), the radon chamber considered as reference in Spain and the Radiochemical and Radioactive Analysis Laboratory accredited by ISO17025. Dr. A. Vargas has actively working during the last years in “Environmental dosimetry” working group 3 of the European Radiation Dosimetry Group (EURADOS, http://www.eurados.org/). From February 2015, he has been elected as the Chairperson of WG3. At the beginning of research career Dr. Arturo Vargas studied the radiological risk occurred as a result of inhaling the radon progeny. At this stage, he designed and set up equipment for the measurement of radon gas and the characterization of radioactive aerosol particles arising from its disintegration. Furthermore, he designed and set up the radon chamber at the UPC. During this stage he was involved in 2 European and 1 Spanish research projects. In 2000 started studies of outdoor radon used as a tracer, where he was involved in 4 Spanish research projects. He designed and set up a monitor for very low air radon concentrations measurements. From 2010, Dr. Arturo Vargas has focused the research of novel gamma spectrometry monitors to be used in early warning systems, both fix and mobile stations. The research is focused in the characterization of such monitors by means of Monte Carlo simulations, experimental measurements in reference laboratories and long series in the radiological early warning station of the INTE-UPC in Barcelona. These stdies are being carried out in the framework of WG3 of EURADOS and in the European project “Metrology for radiological early warning networks in Europe” (MetroERM http://earlywarning-emrp.eu/). In relation to mobile studies, he is working with RWUAS in collaboration with the ICARUS group of the UPC. A spectrometric monitor has been installed on an RWUAS and test flies was carried out in the Barcelona Drone Center to characterize its response (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPO58Q9vfIA) and currently he is working in the European project “Metrology for mobile detection ionising radiation following a nuclear or radiological incident” (preparedness), as responsible of the RWUAS working group (https://www.euramet.org/research-innovation/research-empir/empir-calls-and-projects/empir-call-2016/). During the research period, Dr Arturo Vargas published more than 35 publications in peer review journals, participates in seven national projects funded by the Spanish Ministry and five European projects. Currently, he participates in 2 European projects, one is the above mentioned preparedness and the second is “European Natural Airborne Disaster Information and Coordination System for Aviation” (EUNADICS-AV, http://www.eunadics.eu). The main objective is closing the significant gap in European-wide data and information availability during airborne hazards. Dr. Arturo Vargas is involved in the risk evaluation to crew and passengers of a commercial flight in case of radiological incident.