Project Charon: mapping the British nuclear test sites
Gamma-radiation maps registered to survey-scale 3D reconstructions of Maralinga and Emu Field, built with low-cost instruments on a validated historical record of the British tests.
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Nicholas Eshun-Wilson
Chemistry student working on radiation-tolerant fungi, radiation measurement and field 3D survey.
I'm studying a Bachelor of Science at Western Sydney University, majoring in Chemistry with a minor in Infectious Disease and Pharmacology. Alongside my degree I run an independent research program on the former British nuclear test sites at Maralinga and Emu Field: Project Charon maps them in 3D and gamma radiation, and Project Pluto studies the radiation-tolerant microbes that live there. I build the field kit and data pipelines myself, from off-grid sampling and radiation shielding to GNSS-logged gamma spectrometry and Gaussian splatting.
Timeline
News
- September 2026: sourced IFLRS-75 lunar regolith simulant from Interstellar Innovation for small-scale glass trials.
- June 2026: presented Radiotrophs and Where to Find Them, a case study on mapping contaminated ground for Project Charon, in ENVL2007 at Western Sydney University.
- September 2025: presented Project Tycho, 3D-printed reactors with LLM-driven design, at Stephen Elliott's Deep Network presentation night (video).
Projects
Project Pluto: microbes as nuclear threats and tools
Metagenomic study design and lab methods for the melanised, radiation-tolerant microbes Charon samples, and a policy brief on them as threats and tools for Australian nuclear infrastructure.
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Project Tycho: 3D-printed reactors and LLM-driven design
Parametric 3D-printed microreactors modelled in OpenSCAD, with the aim of language models that read the synthesis literature and propose the hardware to run it.
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Project Joyous: β-nitrostyrene chemistry
The antimicrobial activity of β-nitrostyrenes, and synthetic routes to endogenous neurotransmitters and neuromelanin.
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