Research Highlight: Chuck Melcher
Chuck Melcher, a research professor of materials science and engineering, serves as director of the Scintillation Materials Research Center at UT.
Scintillators are materials that emit light when in the presence of radiation, which makes them a critical component in the detectors used to track potentially illegal transport of radioactive materials.
That same light-emitting ability also makes them a vital tool in the early diagnosis of cancer by vastly improving the imaging used in Positron Emission Tomography and Computed Tomography, better known as PET and CT, scans.