Kathryn Higley

Kathryn Higley

Kathryn Higley

Distinguished Professor
Interim Director, Center for Quantitative Life Sciences
Organizations
Nuclear Science and Engineering
Address

Corvallis, OR
United States

Degrees
Ph.D. in Radiological Health Sciences, Colorado State University (1994)
M.S. in Radiological Health Sciences (1992)
B.A. in Chemistry from Reed College (1978)
Biography

At Oregon State since 1994. Kathryn Higley’s fields of interest include environmental transport and fate of radionuclides, radioecology, radiochemistry, radiation dose assessment, neutron activation analysis, nuclear emergency response, and environmental regulations. She has held both reactor operator and senior reactor operator’s licenses, and is a former reactor supervisor for the Reed College TRIGA reactor. Higley has been at Oregon State University since 1994 teaching undergraduate and graduate classes on radioecology, dosimetry, radiation protection, radiochemistry, and radiation biology. She was head of the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering from 2010-2020. She spent fourteen years with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as an environmental health physicist at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and three years in environmental radiation monitoring at the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant in Oregon. She is vice chair of the International Commission on Radiological Protection Committee 4: Application of the Commission's Recommendations. She is also co-chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization and chair of North Pacific Marine Science Organization Working Group 30: Assessment of Marine Environmental Quality of Radiation around the North Pacific.