School of Health Sciences

Dr. Linda Nie graduated from Zhongnan University of Technology with a Bachelor's degree in Physics in 1996. She worked in the Department of Nuclear Physics at China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE) as a Research Scientist for 4 years after graduation. She then went to Canada to pursue a higher education in year 2000 and received a M.Sc. degree in 2001 and a Ph.D degree in 2005 in the Department of Medical Physics and Applied Radiation Sciences at McMaster University. She was recruited as a Research Fellow and the Director of the x-ray fluorescence (XRF) laboratory in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard School of Public Health and worked there from 2005 to 2009. Dr. Nie started her position as an Assistant Professor in the School of Health Sciences at Purdue University in Aug.2009.

Dr. Nie's academic background is in Nuclear Physics, Medical Physics, and Radiation Sciences. She had intensive training and research experience in Environmental Health, Epidemiology, and Radiobiology during her time at Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Nie has a broad research interest originated from her diverse education, training, and research experiences. Her current research focuses on two directions, one is on the radiation instrumentation and the other is on the health effects of ionizing radiation. For the former, she and her group have been developing novel x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and neutron activation analysis (NAA) technologies to quantify elements, especially toxic metals, in human body in vivo. She and her collaborators are also working on advanced nuclear technologies for early diagnose of critical diseases. These technologies have been and/or will be used in exposure assessment of toxic metals and diagnostic of critical diseases. For the research on health effect of ionizing radiation, Dr. Nie and her group have been developing novel Monte Carlo simulation models to investigate radiation dosimetry such as bone microdosimetry, dose characterization for CT scan, and irradiator design for low dose radiation. She and her collaborators are also working on identifying novel genetic biomarkers for ionizing radiation. To learn more about her research interests, please refer to her home page: http://www.healthsciences.purdue.edu/people/faculty.php?uid=hnie.