Ronald Collé

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Ronald Collé (born February 11, 1946) is an internationally-recognized specialist in nuclear and radiochemistry, radionuclidic metrology, and the development of standards. He has been working the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) since 1974 and currently serves as a Research Chemist in the Radioactivity Group of the NIST Physics Laboratory (Ionizing Radiation Division). Previously, he held research positions at Brookhaven National Laboratory, the State University of New York at Albany, and at the University of Maryland, College Park.

He received a B.Sc. Chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1969,^{[citation needed]} a Ph.D. in Chemistry (Nuclear and Radiochemistry) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1972, and a M.S. Adm. (Administration of Science and Technology) from George Washington University in 1979.

The majority of Collé's research has been in the area of developing methods to accurately measure radioactivity. When radon was recognized as a public health problem, Collé led the effort at NIST to determine what the national radon measurement needs were and then to develop standard analysis methods and radon standards for instrument calibration. His methods for studying the atmospheric distribution of radon and other natural isotopes are used for atmospheric modeling and climate research. He also developed methods to analyse and standardize brachytherapy sources, pellets of radioactive material designed to be implanted in the body at site requiring direct radiation exposure.

An important part of metrology and standards development is understanding and taking into account uncertainties that are inherent in the instruments or that arise from methodology. With statistician Churchill Eisenhart, Collé originated the type A and type B uncertainty distinction approach, as used for measurement uncertainty treatments. This approach is now adopted by most world-wide international scientific organizations.

Collé has published over ninety research papers, and from 1999 through 2004 was an associate editor of the Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST Journal).^{[citation needed]}