Langley Yard

I attribute my success to the fact that I look at physics from a different way than a lot of what you would expect your physicists to be, your Albert Einsteins and whatnot. I approached it in a very real-world way. I want to work as a team and a community. I'm not coming at you as this expert physics authority with just kind of pushing regulations and things like that. This is a team. My ultimate goal is to keep people safe, whether that's my community, or the staff members, or the patients. I approach everything from a realistic team point of view and kind of work centrally instead of coming at it from this higher level of regulatory and physics-heavy physics-based information and pushing that on people. I want to work through our systems as they actually flow and figure out how to make radiation safety or radiation processes better, rather than just making blanket statements and expecting people to follow them.

My advice to young women entering this industry is to stay confident and trust in your abilities. Don’t let anyone intimidate you—approach each challenge with determination, and know that you have what it takes to succeed.

The biggest challenge in my field is that there is a lack of true entry-level positions. It's kind of hard to initially break in. You can get the education, but there is kind of a lack of entry-level positions, and everything is kind of expecting you to have a little bit of experience. I started my experience in a university-based medical center setting, so there was kind of a staged sequence, but that's kind of the big challenge in the field right now. It's not even so much getting your foot in the door, it's just that those jobs just don't exist or are few and far between. I actually created a position here as an entry level for somebody, and I hired somebody into it who didn't really have a background in radiation, and he's been learning and working towards it. I think that's kind of been my contribution to the field, is creating one of those positions, but they are hard to find.

Clear, effective communication is always my top value. That is how I communicate radiation risk and safety and make sure that I'm getting all the information as well. That's how all of your relationships are founded. Communication, healthy, balanced communication, and learning how other people communicate so that you can be effective is by far my biggest value, because you have to meet people where they're at, and that's the only way to do it. When you deal with a profession that is so risk-based and so hazard-based, you have to be able to talk to people.