Radiation Health Officer Motivational Statement

Motivational Statement for Radiation Health Officer U.S. Navy
A Radiation Health Officer position combines the application of medical and health physics with a strong leadership position in a team-driven environment. With a Master 's degree in Medical Physics, I seek a position where I can combine my strong educational background in a professional setting where I can make a difference in the safety of my peers and the public. Ultimately, a Radiation Health Officer position in the Navy embodies my desire to work as a strong member of a team, with the most cutting-edge technology in the field, with goals of serving my country and creating a safe work environment for my peers and I, and to grow into a respectable leader who brings out excellence

After my Bachelor of Science in Physics at Emory, I worked as a research assistant as I investigated the components of cellular function using Escherichia coli as a model organism in Dr. Minsu Kim’s research laboratory. Through manipulation at the molecular level, (i.e., altering genes, proteins, and metabolites to induce a synthetic biological system) we characterized certain functions of the cells by first understanding each individual component. To understand the relationship between each component and a certain function of the cell, we used quantitative experiments to bridge the biological processes at the molecular and cellular level using Biophysics techniques and mathematical modeling. My investigation included growing cells in minimal media with different strains of NCM 3722 E. coli, and I conducted viability assays to determine the death rate of cells after they reached stationary phase. Using minimal media, which is carbon and nitrogen free, we can manipulate the amount of carbon or nitrogen source, hence, the cell density in each culture. Once cells are depleted of their nutrients, they begin to die and I perform viability assays to quantify the death rate. At the molecular level, genes are deleted in different strains of NCM 3722 E.coli; and at the cellular level, I investigated how the absence of a gene affected the survival of the cells compared to wild-type NCM 3722 E. coli. The application of research offered me a chance to acquire hands on training working with a live organism. Conducting research in Dr. Kim 's lab has helped me improve both my attention to minute detail and understand how each detail contributes to the overall mechanism being investigated. Each experiment operated under very specific time frames and it was crucial to meet each step at a designated time. I learned the importance of each step and that performing only 99 out of 100 steps perfectly still means that the procedure was executed