Spring 2027

Ionizing Radiation

This course covers the sources, interactions, and detection of ionizing radiation, focusing on biological effects, shielding, and standards of radiation protection.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Laura Bartol

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Douglass Henderson

Homework often required deriving your own equations and involved problems written by the instructor, while exams were also described as difficult.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Explain the modes by which uncharged radiation (photons and neutrons) interacts with matter

  • Describe how heavy and light charged particles interact with matter

  • Determine radiological quantities associated with radiation protection (e.g., exposure, absorbed dose, and dose equivalent) for external sources of radiation (unshielded and shielded)

  • Determine committed doses for internal sources of radiation

  • Design a shield to protect occupational workers from radiation exposure due to simple photon and neutron sources

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

N E 305, graduate/professional standing, or member of Engineering Guest Students

    • NE 305
    • graduate/professional standing
    • member of Engineering Guest Students
    take one
NE 408 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Any of
    • NE 305
    • graduate/professional standing
    • member of Engineering Guest Students

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.30 GPA, 64.0% A/AB (n=25 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.26 GPA, 57.8% A/AB (n=45 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.30 GPA, 62.5% A/AB (n=32 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

DOUGLASS LARRY HENDERSON is recorded teaching in Spring 2007, Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2020, Spring 2022. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

LAURA BARTOL is recorded teaching in Spring 2016, Spring 2019, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 480

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Douglass Henderson

Students found the class challenging but appreciated the instructor's expertise and evident care for teaching, noting that the difficulty was expected for the subject.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.30 GPA, 64.0% A/AB (n=25 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.26 GPA, 57.8% A/AB (n=45 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.30 GPA, 62.5% A/AB (n=32 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Douglass Henderson

Homework often required deriving your own equations and involved problems written by the instructor, while exams were also described as difficult.

Past student reviews · Douglass Henderson

Lectures were complex but thorough, with explanations given plainly without assuming prior knowledge, though homework problems could still be tricky despite resembling class examples.

Topics

  • Sources, interactions, and detection of ionizing radiation.
  • Biological effects, shielding, and standards of radiation protection.
  • Interactions of uncharged radiation (photons and neutrons) and charged particles with matter.

Skills

  • Determining radiological quantities, including exposure, absorbed dose, dose equivalent, and committed doses for external and internal radiation sources.
  • Designing shields to protect occupational workers from radiation exposure due to simple photon and neutron sources.
  • Understanding sources, interactions, and detection methods for ionizing radiation, as well as biological effects and protection standards.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
NE 408 · Spring 2027

Ionizing Radiation

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:684:013805",
    "course_id": "NE 408",
    "course_uid": "course_8dfdccb5fe0635b51acd8781",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "013805",
    "source_subject_id": "684",
    "title": "Ionizing Radiation",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "27ba10093f6939f54cd146a3de87597f43f4355a199013e1e1f0553369edbdad",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}