-----Dr. Nagarkar joined RMD, Inc. in 1987 as a Senior Scientist, originally making individual contributions to RMD's exceptional research and development activities. He now heads the Imaging Technology Group, which conducts research on and develops advanced radiation detection materials and instrumentation. He has published over 60 research papers, and has been granted or has submitted at least 10 patents. Dr. Nagarkar frequently acts as the Principal Investigator on research grants.

Instrumentation development: Dr. Nagarkar has conducted instrumentation and high-resolution detector development throughout his years at RMD. In his first assignment, Dr. Nagarkar directed the development of a solid state integrating proton, electron, gamma and neutron dosimeter for high altitude flights and low Earth orbital missions. Since then, he has worked on and/or initiated a number of instrumentation and materials projects involving space dosimetry, nondestructive testing and nuclear imaging. His instrumentation work includes the development of a remarkable computerized tomography system for the real-time monitoring and control of the crystal-melt interface during the crystal growth process. His work also includes an unusual imaging radiac, which utilizes a position-sensitive photomultiplier tube in conjunction with a video camera, allowing the remote imaging of any distribution of radioactivity within the field of view of the camera.

Scintillator research and development: Dr. Nagarkar has conducted extensive research on advanced scintillator materials and related X-ray, neutron and gamma ray imaging and detection instrumentation, beginning with his work on the scintillator material CsI:Tl (thallium-doped cesium iodide) in the early 1990s. His interest and activities in this area have led to numerous research and development projects that have resulted in discoveries and innovations in all classes and types and in every principal application of radiation detection materials.

Education: Dr. Nagarkar earned his Ph.D. in Physics in 1986 from Poona University (Pune, India), where he also received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering 1981 and his B.S. in physics in 1979. His Ph.D. thesis was "Design and Development of a System to Study Two Dimensional Angular Correlation of Positrons (2D-ACPAR) using High Density Multiwire Proportional Chambers (HDMPC)". His contributions to the project on which his thesis was based included the design and fabrication of large area position-sensitive X-ray/gamma ray detectors (HDMPCs) and associated readout and data analysis circuitry. During his Ph.D. work Dr. Nagarkar was honored as a recipient of the Department of Atomic Energy fellowship.

During 1986-87 Dr. Nagarkar was a Post Doctoral Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA), where he worked on gamma-gamma angular correlation measurements and the development of a fast-slow positron lifetime spectrometer for condensed matter physics studies. At MIT his activities also included the development of instrumentation for characterizing the elastic properties of solids using ultrasound pulse-echo techniques and a digital interface to study 3-D axon growth in brain research.

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