Assistant Director, Radiation and Laser Safety and University Radiation Safety Officer

This position designs, implements, leads, and continuously improves the comprehensive university-wide radiation safety and protection program to ensure the safe procurement, use, storage, control, and disposal of radioactive materials and radiation producing equipment. Ensures compliance with State and Federal regulations as well as license and certification requirements. Acts as the university’s designated Radiation Safety Officer and leads a team of two radiation safety professionals.

As a member of the Environmental Health, Safety and Sustainability Team, the Assistant Director and Radiation Safety Officer assists in establishing and maintaining strong, collaborative relationships with Vanderbilt’s faculty, staff and students and identifies additional ways to be of service and ensure customer satisfaction. This position supports the success of a high-performing organization by helping to champion and drive efficiency and effectiveness through the use of safety informatics, databases, software and instructional technology.

This position will be hybrid with the majority of each week spent working on-campus and a smaller portion working remotely. Core work hours are 8am-5pm Mon-Fri with various alternative work hours and schedules available.

About the Work Unit
:

Environmental Health, Safety, and Sustainability is part of the Health and Wellness organization and consists of research-centric safety services, university sustainability leadership, and public health operations support including COVID-19 response management. Health and Wellness is a new organization at the university that encompasses EHSS along with wellness, employee and student support programs. EHSS is a 18 member team that supports a top-13 world-class research university with a community of 27,000 faculty, staff and students on 5.8 million square feet of academic, administrative, residential, and recreational space on 330 acres in downtown Nashville, TN.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Implement and manage the VU radiation safety program for radioactive materials and radiation producing equipment in accordance with all state and federal regulations as well as license and certification requirements.
• Act as primary contact for regulatory inspections concerning radiation safety with responsibility for implementing any needed corrective actions.
• Continuously improve safety, compliance and customer service with the goal of developing a world-class safety culture at Vanderbilt.
• Acts as assistant director for radiation safety which includes the recruitment, development, and retention of radiation safety staff, supplies and equipment management, effective training, report, and presentation development and delivery, and other leadership functions.
• Develop, administer, and innovate radiation safety, DOT, and radiation awareness training and education materials and modules.
• Design, implement and innovate the following radiation safety programs:
• Radiation Safety Committee and subcommittees. Enforce policies mandated by committees for all radioactive materials users. Review research protocols as needed.
• Human Subjects Radiation Committee and the Radioactive Drug Research Committee – Serve as an ex-officio member of these committees and review human use protocols.
• Research Protocol Management, Review and Support - Manage the submission, review, revision, and support of research protocols to use sources of ionizing radiation from ~35 principal researchers through the RSC Protocol Review Subcommittee. This includes any health physics evaluations or development of new procedures that is needed to support new research proposals.
• Radiation Safety Audit Program including VU EHS, primary departments and ~75 research laboratories. The Radiation Safety Program must be audited at least annually.
• Broadscope License and Certified Registration program for radioactive material, accelerators and X-ray equipment. Submit amendments and renewals for the radioactive material licenses and certified registrations as necessary.
• Sealed Source Program - Manage the sealed source inventory and leak test program.
• Personnel Monitoring, ALARA and Bioassay Program – develop and…