Awards success for ISIS apprentice Connie Butler

Connie, who has just finished a two-year apprenticeship with the Health Physics and Facility Safety Group, won the award for her support of the MuSR upgrade project at ISIS. “It was the first time I did a project on my own. I learned a lot from it,” Connie says.

Connie completed radiations surveys for the project, establishing radiation levels around the MuSR instrument. After weeks of planning, she spent a full day completing the survey, running MuSR for an hour at a time then measuring radiation in the equipment and surrounding area. This brought technical challenges as MuSR is a muon instrument. “We have instruments that monitor beta/gamma and neutron radiation, as muons aren’t actually radioactive. On our instruments muons can present themselves as neutrons as they can have the same energies, so it was hard to distinguish if the instruments were picking up muons or neutrons,” Connie explains.

During her apprenticeship, Connie also volunteered for several public engagement projects, including speaking to pupils at local secondary schools and at a careers fair at the Kassam football stadium.

Since completing her apprenticeship, Connie has been working as a Health Physics Surveyor in the same team. “I have more independence now, more responsibility,” says Connie. “I’m also helping the new apprentice learn the job, passing on the things I know now that I wish I’d known when I started.”