Speaker
Description
Weronika W. Wolszczak is a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she leads projects on optical detection of ionizing radiation and on understanding fundamental processes in organic scintillators. Her research combines advanced optical and laser-based measurement techniques with detailed characterization of scintillation properties to investigate energy-transfer pathways and the mechanisms that govern light production in radiation detection materials. She specializes in time-, wavelength-, and temperature-resolved spectroscopic methods to study how scintillators respond from the moment of excitation through the full sequence of relaxation processes.
Weronika received her Ph.D. in 2019 from TU Delft, where she used internal alpha-particle contamination and digital signal processing to characterize high-density quenching in scintillators, studied pulse-shape changes as a function of gamma-ray energy, and developed the first high-energy-resolution, near-infrared scintillator—often referred to as the “black scintillator.”
At LBNL, she co-organized the Workshop on Radiation Detection Materials (WoRDMap), contributing to the development of research priorities and a strategic roadmap for the NNSA Nuclear Nonproliferation R&D Office. Her earlier research includes work on thallium-based scintillators for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and water-based liquid scintillators for future neutrino experiments.
Invited conference and workshop presentations include the Nuclear Structure Workshop in Bormio; invited talks at SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications; an invited contribution to SCINT (Richard Williams Memorial Session); a presentation for Accelerator Research and Innovation for European Science and Society – Advanced Diagnostics at Accelerators (ARIES–ADA); and a talk at a workshop organized by Saint-Gobain (now Luxium Solutions). Invited seminars include presentations at the National Centre for Nuclear Research (Świerk), Jagiellonian University, the University of Tennessee, Wake Forest University, and TU Delft.
Weronika collaborates broadly across national laboratories, universities, and industry. Her work aims to uncover the fundamental physics that drive scintillation processes and to support the deliberate design of next-generation radiation detection materials.