2010 Annual Report

2010a tradition of discovery

ANNUAL REPORT

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Department of Nuclear Engineering

Howdy!Howdy, aggie nukes!it has been quite a while since the department of nuclear Engineering has published an annual report. i am extremely pleased to be able to “resur-rect” this important communication vehicle with you after a long hiatus - to remind you of the educational mission that continues to evolve and advance in our department as we proceed toward our 50th anniversary in 2012.

the department has grown to over 400 students (combined undergraduate and graduate), from just over 50 in 1998. in the last five years, we have grown by 70%. Moreover, the department’s faculty has grown and diversified, now addressing five major sectors of the nuclear enterprise with world-class re-search and expertise: Computational Methods and reactor Physics, nuclear Power Engineering, nuclear Security and nonproliferation, nuclear Materials and fuel Cycles, and Health Physics & radiation Biology.

as we head toward our 50th anniversary, we commit to maintaining and enhancing our excellence in research and teaching, so that we can be judged not just the largest, but the best nuclear Engineering department in the Unit-ed States. Whoop!

raymond J. Juzaitis, Ph.d.department Head

Sallie and don davis ’61Professor in Engineering

Annual Report 2009-2010

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Texas A&M University

News & EventsDepartment Sees Increase In Research Expenditures/Awards

the 2009-2010 academic year saw notable increases in both research expenditures and awards. Expenditures increased by 33% to $10 million (fY2010) from $7.5 million (fY2009) and awards increased 74% to $15 million (fY2010)from $8.6 million (fY2009).

Invited Speaker’s Series: Nuclear Technology and Society

the department celebrates the challenge of exploring the rich interface between nuclear technology and society by sponsoring an invited lecture series by experts represent-ing the broad spectrum of nuclear technology in today’s world, and the special policy and sociological issues that are endangered by its application.

Series speakers and topics included:dr. Warren f. “Pete” Miller, Jr., “doE nuclear Energy

Programs: the Long and the Short/the far and the near”dr. Milton Levenson, “Validity of risk assessments in

Societal decision-Making”dr. Jay davis, “next Steps in nuclear Weapons Control”

Students Earn Awards from NRCthe department received more than $375,000 from the nuclear regulatory Commission that was awarded via two fellowships and nine scholarships. Graduate students Peter Maginot and Christopher ryan received nrC fellowship awards with Bradley Beeny, ross darville, Kevin dugan, Michael Hackemack, daniel Holladay, William Mcneely, Wil-liam Sames, alex Smith and Jared tooley receiving under-graduate scholarships.

Dercher Wins NEUP Fellowshipandrew dercher, graduate student,

was awarded the nuclear Energy Uni-versity Programs (nEUP) fellowship from the department of Energy’s office of nuclear Energy. the award provides dercher $150,000 over three years.

He is currently working with dr. Karen Vierow on improvements to the decay heat removal system for gas-cooled fast reactors.

in 2009, the nEUP program awarded 76 scholarships and 18 fellowships, approximately $2.9 million, to U.S. nuclear science and engineering students.

Advisory Council/Department Tailgatethe fall advisory council meeting wrapped up with a

tailgate at the november 21, 2009 football game against Baylor University. Council members, faculty, staff and stu-dents gathered to enjoy burgers and beverages before the game.

Barker Scholarship Benefits Nuclear Engineering

david G. Barker of Kerrville, texas, endowed a scholarship for nuclear engi-neering undergraduates. His initial gift of $25,000, funded through the texas a&M foundation, will establish the david G.

Barker ‘66 Scholarship. Matching funds from ray a. ro-throck of Portola Valley, California will increase the endow-ment to $25,000.

Barker, texas a&M Class of 1966, earned an undergradu-ate degree in mechanical engineering and then a master’s degree in nuclear engineering in 1968 before beginning his career in the nuclear industry. He is currently a general manager with dril-Quip, inc. in Houston, texas.

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Adams Receives “Distinguished Teaching Award” by Association of Former Students

Marvin adams, professor, was awarded the “distinguished teach-ing award” by the association of former Students. adams was one of 24 members of the faculty and staff

selected.the university-level distinguished awards were first

presented in 1955 and have since been awarded to 882 professionals who have exhibited the highest standards of excellence at texas a&M.

McDeavitt Earns Barclay Faculty Fellow

Sean Mcdeavitt received the Charles H. Barclay Jr. ‘45 faculty fel-low award from the dwight Look College of Engineering. Mcdeavitt was one of three professors to receive the award. He is an assistant profes-sor in nuclear engineering, appointed in 2006.

Mcdeavitt’s area of interest is in nuclear materials and fuel cycles.

Charlton Named Advisor Of The Yeardr. William Charlton, associate professor, was named

advisor of the Year by texas a&M University’s department of Student activities. Charlton advises the university’s stu-dent chapter of the institute of nuclear Materials Manage-ment (inMM).

it was through Charlton’s initiative that the first student chapter of the organization was established. Since then, and from the inspiration of the a&M chapter, six other stu-dent chapters across the United States have been formed.

Roney Elected SEC Presidentaaron roney, nuclear en-

gineering student, was elected President of the Student Engineer-ing Council for the 2010-2011 academic year. roney is a senior from Grapevine, texas.

the SEC is the representative body for the more than 12,000

students in the dwight Look College of Engineering. the SEC represents the engineering students and professional societies to the college administration and to the university as a whole.

NE Department Participates in NRC Public Outreach Meeting in Victoria

dr. Karen Vierow, associate professor, Peter Maginot, graduate student and Marna Billiter, program coordinator, represented the department at the Public outreach Meet-ing in Victoria, texas, hosted by the nuclear regulatory Commission, on april 15, 2010. the meeting was held in re-sponse to the “early site permit” application filed by Exelon Generation for an 11,500-acre site in Victoria County.

the group was on hand to answers question about the department and explain to community participants what nuclear engineers do.

Garrett Selected as Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Junior

travis Garrett, a nuclear engi-neering student, was selected as the Phi Kappa Phi outstanding Junior in the College of Engineering. He was presented with a plaque and a mon-etary award during the Phi Kappa Phi

initiation ceremony on Sunday, april 18, 2010.Each spring, the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi recog-

nizes one outstanding junior student from each college at texas a&M University. one of these juniors is then selected as the University outstanding Junior.

the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi is the nation’s old-

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teaching reactor, assembled in 1957, the aGn became the cornerstone for the evolution of the nuclear engineering department. over the years, replacement parts became ob-solete and made it necessary to upgrade the reactor’s entire instrumentation panel and circuitry.

texas a&M University is the only U.S. university with two nuclear reactors, the other a 1-MW triGa reactor located at the nuclear Science Center.

Having two reactors provides students several distinct advantages: allowing more “hands on” opportunities for as it is used in conjunction with the nSC; providing a look at the unique operating characteristics of two different types of reactors; and having multiple neutron sources for the other laboratories located in the Zachry Engineering Center and on campus.

McDeavitt Receives ATR NSUF Experiment Award

Sean Mcdeavitt, assistant profes-sor was selected to lead one of the five new university-led research proj-ects at the idaho national Labora-tory advanced test reactor national Scientific User facility (atr nSUf).

this highly regarded opportunity grants Mcdeavitt and his research team, which will include students

and researchers from the Lightbridge Corporation, full ac-cess at no cost to the advanced test reactor (atr) – one of the world’s premier research reactors – and other resources at idaho national Laboratory (inL).

the research proposal is an irradiation and post-irradia-tion examination on “irradiation Behavior and Performance of a Uranium-Zirconium Metal alloy fuel.” the experiment plans to demonstrate and characterize the performance of the uranium-zirconium metal alloy fuel for thermal reactors.

it will be one of the first experiments to insert fuel into the reactor since the inception of the program in 2007. the research project is anticipated to take four years to com-plete during which the research team, along with scientists from inL, will design, prepare and insert the experiment into the reactor, conduct the experiment and analyze the results.

Department and NSC Receive DOE Grantsthe department of nuclear Engineering and the tEES

nuclear Science Center were awarded $737,136 in grants from the U.S. department of Energy (doE). the grants were part of approximately $18.2 million awarded to help edu-cate the next generation of nuclear scientists and engineers, and to strengthen nuclear research and education capabili-

est, largest, and most selective honor society for all academ-ic disciplines. the organization inducts approximately 30,000 students, faculty, professional staff and alumni annually from 300 select colleges and universities in north america and the Philippines. Membership is granted by invitation only to the top 7.5 percent of juniors.

Yancey Named Fulbright ScholarKristina Yancey ‘10 received a ful-

bright grant to conduct research and study in Switzerland for the 2010-2011 academic year.

“this is something that i have been interested in since i was a freshman,” said Yancey.

Yancey will work with the faSt reactors Group at the Paul Scherrer

institute in Zurich, Switzerland. More specifically, the faSt (fast-spectrum advanced Systems for power production and resource management) project is an activity performed in the Laboratory for reactor Physics and Systems Behavior of the institute in the area of fast-spectrum reactor behavior with an emphasis on the comparative analysis of the Gen-eration iV systems.

She has deferred her entrance into the nuclear engi-neering graduate program in order to accept the fulbright offer.

Morel Named ANS FellowProfessor Jim Morel was named american

nuclear Society (anS) fellow during the soci-ety’s annual summer meeting in San diego, California, on June 15, 2010. the society bestows the lifetime honor on individuals who have made significant accomplishments

in the fields of nuclear science and engineering. this prestigious designation is the highest individual

recognition granted by anS and acknowledges the extraor-dinary leadership of nuclear professionals in different disci-plines relating to research, invention, engineering, safety, technical leadership and teaching.

Morel was cited by the organization for having “pio-neered research contributions to both deterministic and Monte Carlo charged-particle transport methods as well as many seminal contributions to general radiation transport discretization and solution techniques. His contributions resulted in the development of the three major transport codes: CEPXS/onELd, the MitS-adjoint Monte Carlo Code and the attiLa Code.”

Morel joins fellow nuclear engineering professors Mar-vin adams, Yassin Hassan, Paul nelson, Kenneth Peddicord and John Poston as previous recipients of the designation.

AGN 201-M Teaching Reactor Restores Operationstechnical upgrades to the aGn 201-M reactor were completed over the summer of 2010. the

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ties at U.S. universities and colleges.the department will receive $286,000 for “general

scientific infrastructure.” Monies from the grant will be used to purchase new equipment to integrate with exist-ing pieces to create a portable imaging suite consisting of a high-speed camera, two thermal imagers (one for research, one for classroom), and an ultrasonic imaging system. the imaging suite will be available for use by the entire nuclear engineering department, and will promote advances in curricular enhancements, develop under-graduate research experiences, increase faculty research capabilities and promote public outreach.

the funding given to the nuclear Science Center was part of the “major reactor upgrades” project. the $451,136 grant is earmarked for a cooling tower replace-ment, new fire alarm system, whole body exit monitor, airborne material control and facility air monitoring system at the reactor. the upgrade will provide necessary enhancements so the facility can continue its commit-ment to research, safety and security.

Charlton Receives Special Service Award from INMM

associate professor William Charlton was awarded the “Special Service award,” at the institute of nuclear Materials Management (inMM) annual meeting in Balti-more, Maryland on July 13, 2010.

the award focuses on notewor-thy contributions to the industry or

the institute, and is only one of three awards presented at the meeting. Charlton was cited “for his leadership and mentoring of university students and young profes-sionals in nuclear materials management.”

Shao Wins Second Teaching Award

dr. Lin Shao, assistant professor was named one of the texas a&M University System’s top teachers in the spring 2010 presentation of the teaching Excellence awards, a voluntary, student-selected honors program.

Shao was one of four professors in the College of Engineering named and one of 161 faculty were honored system-wide. awards are based on rankings from evaluations created and adminis-tered by students, with weighting for factors such as class size. faculty winners receive checks ranging from $2,500 to $10,000.

Shao was recognized for his teaching of nUEn 265, Materials Science for nuclear Engineering applications. this is the second time Shao has received the award, he was honored in Spring 2009 for teaching nUEn 201, in-troduction to nuclear Engineering.

“i am honored to receive this award for the second

time and for a different course,” Shao said. “i am glad that my teaching style was well accepted by the students.”

ANS Student Chapter Creates Endowment

the taMU student chap-ter of the american nuclear Society established a fund at the texas a&M foundation with its share of earnings from a locally hosted nation-al student conference.

Earnings from the $25,000 endowment will be used to generate schol-

arships for anS members, student travel to professional conferences, presentation of student papers at profes-sional events, and hosting professional industry speakers. the chapter contributed an additional $1,250 to cover the administrative fee in order for next year’s students to have immediate access to earnings.

Sames Attends Washington Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation

William Sames represented the university and the State of texas at the 2010 Washington nuclear Engineering Stu-dent delegation (nESd). Every summer the delegation trav-els to Washington, d.C., to discuss the issues facing nuclear energy, policy, education and research with key policy makers. traditionally comprised of only nuclear engineering students, the delegation has broadened to include students from a diverse assortment of disciplines including, but not limited to, non-proliferation, national security, health phys-ics and environmental science and policy.

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About the DepartmentNational Rankings Among Public Universities2nd in Undergraduate Programs3rd in Graduate ProgramsSource: U.S. news & World reports

Enrollment292 Undergraduate Students 233 B.S. nuclear Engineering 45 B.S. radiological Health Engineering

111 Graduate Students 61 M.S. nuclear Engineering 15 M.S. Health Physics 34 Ph.d. nuclear Engineering

Source: TAMU OISP, Fall 2009

Degree ProgramsUndergraduate Programthe department of nuclear Engineering offers Bachelor of Science degrees in nuclear engineering and radiological health engineering.

the undergraduate program strives to produce qualified engineers to meet the technical manpower need in the areas of nuclear energy production, space applications, and radiological health technologies. Graduates of our program find careers in government and private labs, regulatory agencies, reactor vending, utilities, architect engineering and the space program.

Graduate Programthe department of nuclear Engineering offers Master of Science degrees in nuclear engineering and health physics and a doctorate of Philosophy degree in nuclear engineer-ing.

Students interested in doctoral level studies in health phys-ics can pursue these through the Ph.d. program in nuclear engineering.

research opportunities are varied, with emphasis on nuclear fields, solid/ion interactions, particle transport, large-scale scientific computing, materials, and extreme environments, reactor safety, design of advanced nuclear reactors, thermal hydraulics, computational fluid mechanics, reactor kinetics and control, plutonium disposition, space nuclear power systems, radiation interactions with living tissue, dosimetry and medical radionuclides.

Accreditationthe nuclear engineering and radiological health engineer-ing degrees are both accredited by the Engineering accredi-tation Commission of aBEt, inc.

Engineering Certificate Programsthe Look College of Engineering has designed the follow-ing certificate programs to offer students the opportunity to go beyond the traditional curriculum and gain specific knowledge in a concentration area. the certificates below are of great value - both to the students who pursue them and to potential employers who seek candidates possessing these competencies.

Energy Engineering CertificateEngineering Project Management Certificate Engineering Scholars Program Honors Certificateinternational Engineering CertificatePolymer Specialty Certificate Safety Engineering Certificate

other certificate programs available for Engineering Students:

Business Management Certificate for Engineering Students

Undergraduate Research Scholarsthe Undergraduate research Scholars Program is designed to encourage exceptional undergraduate students to actively participate in independent research projects and communicate their research as an author to the research community.

Completion of this program prepares students to be more competitive for national fellowships and for continuation to graduate studies.

only a select group of our undergraduate students become Undergraduate research Scholars. Students with junior or senior standing who are currently participating in indepen-dent research are eligible to apply.

Faculty19 tenured/tenure-track faculty 8 full professors 5 associate 6 assistant2 Senior Lecturers5 Visiting assistant Professors3 Emeritus faculty

Researchfiscal Year 2010$10.0 million in expenditures$15.0 million in new awards

fiscal Year 2009$7.5 million in expenditures$8.6 million in awards

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Our Incoming Students2010 Undergraduate Enrollment Incoming Students

95 Incoming StudentsAVG SAT: 1297 • AVG ACT: 28

By Major• NUEN - 70• RHEN - 25

By Gender

• Male - 78• Female - 17

By Ethnicity

• White - 65• Hispanic - 10• African American - 3• Asian - 4• Multi - 13

2010 Graduate Enrollment Incoming Students35 Incoming Students

AVG GPR: 3.54 • AVG GRE Verbal: 522 • AVG GRE Quantitive: 754

By Major• M.S. NUEN - 21• M.S. HLPH - 4• Ph.D. NUEN - 10

By Gender

• Male - 30• Female - 5

By Ethnicity

• White - 21• Hispanic - 3• African American - 1• Asian - 10

2010 Distribution of Incoming Graduate Students

25 Domestic• Arkansas Tech University• California Polytechnic State University• Kansas State University• New Mexico State University• Purdue University• Resselaer Polytechnic Institute• University of Florida• University of Texas• University of Michigan - Ann Arbor• Virginia Commonwealth University• 12 from Department’s undergraduate program

10 International• Dalian University of Technology (China)• Gadjah Mada University (Indonesia)• Handong Global University (Korea)• Harbin Shipbuilding Engineering Institute (China)• Jordan University of Science and Technology• Mangalore University• Peking University (China)• Seoul National University (Korea)• Tsinghau University (China)• University of Papua New Guinea

nUEn = nuclear EngineeringrHEn = radiological Health Engineering

HLPH = Health Physics

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Dwight Look College of Engineeringthe dwight Look College of Engineering is the largest college on the texas a&M campus with more than 10,000 engineering students enrolled in the 12 departments. the college is consistently ranked among the nation’s top public programs, and is among the top universities in the number of national Merit Scholars, nationally recog-nized faculty and funded research.

Texas A&M Engineering Enrollment (Fall 2009) 7,882 Undergraduate 2,853 Graduate 10,735 total

Source: texas a&M office of institutional Studies and Planning

U.S. Colleges of Engineering Enrollment RankingUndergraduate Georgia tech 1 Texas A&M 2 Purdue 3 north Carolina State 4 illinois 5

Department Enrollment & Degrees AwardedUndergraduate Student Growth“Continued Growth”

Graduate Student Growth“Room to Grow”

Degrees Awarded Past Three Years 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 totals B.S. nUEn 20 28 32 80 B.S. rHEn 9 4 6 19 M.S. nUEn 13 11 19 43 M.S. HLPH 11 2 7 20 M.S. MEnGr 1 1 Ph.d. nUEn 10 8 7 25

Graduate Southern California 1 Georgia tech 2 Stanford 3 Texas A&M 4 Johns Hopkins 5

Source: american Society for Engineering Education (2008-2009)

Source: texas a&M office of institutional Studies and PlanningnUEn = nuclear EngineeringrHEn = radiological Health EngineeringHLPH = Health PhysicsMEnGr = Master of Engineering

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Graduate Student Awards• David Ames, Sandia National Laboratory Fellowship

• Wesley Cardwell, NANT/INPO Fellowship

• Bradley Cox, National Science Biomedical Research institute fellowship

• Andrew Dercher, Department of Energy/Nuclear Energy University Programs fellowship

• Braden Goddard, Roy G. Post Foundation Scholarship

• Joshua Jarrell, Department of Energy/NR Rickover Fellowship and american nuclear Society Everitt P. Blizard Scholarship

• Peter Maginot, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Fellowship

• James Miller, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office/Defense threat reduction agency fellowship

• Christopher Ryan, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Fellowship

• Hayes Stripling, Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate fellowship and roy G. Post foundation Scholarship

• David Wagoner, Health Physics Society Robert Gardner fellowship

Undergraduate Student Awards• Bradley Beeny, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Scholarship

• Austin Blake, Gail de Planque Scholarship

• Ross Darville, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Scholarship

• Oren Draznin, Eloise Vezey Dromgoole Scholarship

• Kevin Dugan, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Scholarship

• Travis Garrett, Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Junior

• Ezra Ginder, American Nuclear Society Scholarship

• Michael Hackemack, Department of Energy/Nuclear Energy University Programs Scholarship, nuclear regulatory Commission Scholarship, and nant Scholarship

• Levi Holden, Jeff W. Simmons ‘85 Scholarship

• Daniel Holladay, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Scholarship

• Jesse Johns, Department of Energy/Nuclear Energy University Programs Scholarship

• Ryan Kelly, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Scholarship and american nuclear Society accelerator apps. div. Scholarship

• Jeffrey McFarland Jr., R.D. Neff Scholarship

• Carolyn McGraw, Jeff W. Simmons ‘85 Scholarship

• William McNeely, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Scholarship

• George Mickum, Gail de Planque Scholarship

Student RecognitionFellowships, Scholarships & Awards

Student Organizations

• Chelsea Murdock, NANT Scholarship

• Aaron Osborne, Jeff W. Simmons ‘85 Scholarship

• Jeremy Rogers, R.D. Neff Scholarship

• William Sames V, Department of Energy/Nuclear Energy University Programs Scholarship and nuclear regulatory Commission Scholarship

• Alex Smith, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Scholarship

• Jared Tooley, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Scholarship

nuclear Engineering students have the opportunity to participate in student chapters of four professional organizations. Each orga-nization hosts invited speakers from around industry and govern-ment, professional development activities and workshops, student socials, a wide variety of intramural sports teams, and many other events throughout the year.

additionally, these organizations provide assistance for various public outreach activities of the department and are officially recognized by the university.

• Alpha Nu Sigma Honor Society american nuclear Society• Health Physics Society• Institute of Nuclear Materials Management• Women in Nuclear

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Undergraduate Profile - Travis GarrettLeading By Example and Striving for Academic Excellence

It is said that to be a remarkable leader, we must make con-scious choices to set the right examples. We should lead in the manner and even the direction that we want others to

follow - by our actions rather than our words.

Travis Garrett does just that – leading by his actions rather than his words.

The soft-spoken senior from Cypress, Texas, is a nuclear engineering student and member of the Texas A&M University Corps of Cadets. Garrett is the 1st Platoon Officer and Scho-lastic Officer for Company S-1. As the Scholastic Officer, he is responsible for how the outfit - thirty platoon members who are mostly freshmen and sophomores - focuses on academics.

These responsibilities include setting academic goals for the platoon, coordinating tutoring or other assistance from either within the Corps or by other campus resources, and motivating the group to maintain their grades.

And, as with any great leader, Garrett leads his platoon by ex-ample. He entered his senior year with a 4.0 grade point ratio - an outstanding accomplishment in any field of study. He was named the Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Junior in the College of Engineering.

Garrett is planning a career in the military, and knew that mak-ing the grades in college will help him in his future.

“I came here knowing that I wanted to do well with my stud-ies,” said Garrett. “And, having good grades now will help me get into the naval reactor program after I complete my degree.”

Garrett credits being a member of the Corps with teaching him discipline and resilience, and he has used those lessons in his pursuit of his nuclear engineering degree. After graduation, he will be commissioned as an ensign in the navy.

He has been rewarded for his academic excellence through the receiving of numerous scholarships and accolades. He has received the Thomas S. Gathright Scholar Academic Excellence Award, a scholarship from the Society of American Military En-gineers, the General Rudder Corps Scholarship, and the NROTC Scholarship.

We are proud to count Travis Garrett as member of the Depart-ment of Nuclear Engineering. His dedication to leadership and

academic excellence are values that have remained strong within the department for nearly fifty years. We applaud his successes and look forward to what the world holds in store for him.

“I came here knowing that I wanted to do well with my studies. And, having good grades now will help me get into the naval reactor program after I complete my degree.”

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Graduate Student Profile - Hayes StriplingGraduate School Prepares Stripling for Research Aspirations

Hayes Stripling hadn’t considered graduate school as an option as he was nearing the completion of his undergraduate degree. He was poised to enter a career in the nuclear power industry until an internship at Knolls Atomic Power Labora-tory (KAPL) changed his course.

During his internship, Stripling became aware and fascinated with the research that was being done at the lab. To Stripling, this research was not only furthering the mission of the lab, but its results could make a direct contribution to the world; and knowing that the skills being used in the research exceeded his own, graduate school became the only option.

Stripling has spent his graduate studies conducting research with the Computational Methods Development group focusing on un-certainty quantifications. He says this area peaked his interest because of the exposure to disciplines outside of nuclear engineer-ing - requiring a mix of math, physics and statistics to work together.

In his graduate studies, Stripling has found ways to contribute to the research projects and further his skills as a scientist. His thesis outlines a framework to allow a modeler to test or validate an existing uncertainty quantification method. By allowing the modeler to more “rigorously” treat the uncertainty in a particular problem, it provides a measure of confidence to the results.

His thesis work has resulted in an article, “The Method of Manufactured Universes for Testing Uncertainty Quantification Meth-ods,” that was coauthored by nuclear engineering professor Marvin Adams, assistant visiting professor Ryan McClarren and statis-tics professor Bani Mallick, and will be featured in a special edition of the Reliability Engineering & Safety Systems Journal. It is an international journal devoted to the development and application of methods for the enhancement of the safety and reliability of complex technological systems.

Now, as he is about to complete his master’s degree, the fascination ignit-ed during his internship has become a career goal. Stripling hopes to pursue a career with one of the National Laboratories after he completes his Ph.D. According to Stripling, it is at these labs where our country focuses its efforts to solve our planet’s most pertinent technical challenges. He says that being involved at this level is exciting because he would be seek-ing solutions that are vitally important to our society, and using top-notch expertise from across the country to do so.

“The idea of being involved with these kinds of efforts – both work-ing towards solutions and identifying future challenges – seems a worth-while and rewarding life’s work,” said Stripling.

“The idea of being involved with these kinds of efforts - both working towards solutions and identifying future challenges - seems a worth-while and rewarding life’s work.”

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Faculty Profile - Dr. Sean McDeavittDanger? Rethinking Nuclear Waste

A growing number of energy experts and even environmentalists are calling for wider use of nuclear energy to reduce our dependence on oil and other fossil

fuels without contributing to global climate change. Critics ask, “But what will we do with the radioactive waste?”

Nuclear engineer Sean McDeavitt thinks that’s the wrong question.

“Most people live at the ‘What are you going to do with the waste?’ question,” says McDeavitt, an assistant professor and specialist in reactor fuels and nuclear materials in Texas A&M’s Department of Nuclear Engineering. “They’re already assuming a certain path with that. It presupposes that used fuel is all waste that we’re going to figure out how to deal with. This also assumes that the solution is a vast mystery that no one understands.”

But new designs for advanced nuclear reactors and the fuel that powers them could make nuclear waste as we now think of it a thing of the past, he says.

“It all comes down to the presuppositions,” he says. “If you restructure your design philosophy forward, you can manage the majority of the long-lived waste out of the picture, to a certain extent.”

Fission 101Most of us understand at least the outline of how atomic fission works: A neutron zaps into a pile of uranium atoms and splits one. Fragments from that split atom (“nuclear shrapnel,” McDeavitt calls them) include newly liberated neutrons that zip out and in turn split other atoms, and so on. As this splitting, or fission, continues, it produces energy, which we see as the heat that turns water into steam that turns turbines to give us electricity.

“Nuclear energy is a fancy way to boil water,” McDeavitt says. “If you’ve got coal, you can boil water the old-fashioned way.”

The atoms in that pile are uranium atoms, but uranium is only the beginning, especially for the sort of advanced reactors McDeavitt is talking about. The fuel used in most commercial reactors starts as a metal ore containing uranium, abbreviated as U. Most reactors use uranium dioxide, or UO2, a combination of uranium and oxygen, although some fuels are alloys of uranium and other metals. Fuels also can be made by combining uranium with nitrogen, silicon, carbon or hydrogen.

“You can make fuels out of nitrides or carbides or silicides or hydrides or essentially any kind of chemistry that will hold the uranium in a solid form and get it into the system,” McDeavitt says.

Other fuel variations can be fabricated, but most often they’re reserved for niche applications, usually in research reactors. The main function of the fuel is to get the uranium into the presence of the neutrons that cause them to split apart. Fuel design aims to fine-tune that fission process, depending on exactly what engineers want to have happen during fission and afterward.

Whenever nuclear fission takes place, the splitting of the uranium atoms results in chemical changes in the fuel involved. After a while, those changes produce elements quite different from the uranium we started with.

“You almost have the entire periodic table by the time you’re done,” McDeavitt says.

Future reactorsNew reactors envisioned by nuclear engineers range from what nuclear energy specialists call Generation 4 reactors, essentially improved, safer, more fuel-efficient versions of the reactors we use today, to even more advanced designs such as what’s known as a traveling-wave reactor that TerraPower is designing. McDeavitt’s research focuses on the fuel these advanced reactors will use rather than on the design of the reactors themselves.

One way to visualize how a traveling-wave reactor works is to imagine the reactor as a line, rod or stick with a wave moving along it. The wave is the nuclear reaction, and it moves slowly (a few centimeters per year) along the fuel in the reactor as the fuel is changed by the continuing reaction. A similar reactor that engineers in Japan are studying is called a candle reactor, because the fuel is “lit” at one end and “burns” to the other end like a flame on a horizontal candle.

Unlike conventional reactors, in which fuel is replaced every three to four years, the fuel in traveling-wave reactors could be in place for 40 to 50 years, and the residue left when the reaction has traveled through all the fuel could be used to fuel other reactors rather than being reprocessed or stored.

“The vision would be to develop a reactor that does not require fuel enrichment and that does not require reprocessing,” McDeavitt says. “Take away these major proliferation risks and ‘nuclear’ becomes not so dirty a word around the society.”

“The vision would be to develop a reactor that does not require fuel enrichment and that does not require reprocessing. Take away these major proliferation risks and ‘nuclear’ becomes not so a dirty word.”

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The future of fuelAnother project from McDeavitt’s current research is concentrated on a potential new fuel that may be used in current-generation reactor systems. This new fuel form was invented at Purdue University, and McDeavitt is now working with IBC Advanced Alloys of Vancouver, Canada, to establish engineering-scale fabrication methods. The fuel combines uranium dioxide and beryllium oxide to produce higher thermal conductivity in the fuel. Developing it is a cross between materials science and manufacturing methods, he says.

“We’re down to engineering the morphology, the form and structure, of the fuel material,” he says.

The goal is to develop a combination of uranium dioxide and beryllium oxide particles that when combined into fuel pellets, allows reactors using it to operate more efficiently than with current fuels.

Essentially, the fuel fabrication method starts with a powder made up of tiny balls of uranium dioxide about 500 microns, or half a millimeter, in diameter and smaller bits of beryllium oxide. These particles are pressed and then sintered, or heated and pressed together, into pellets that go into tubes that make up the reactor core. Understanding the structure of the fuel material is crucial, because a homogeneous mixture behaves differently from a heterogeneous mixture, and heterogeneous mixtures’ behavior can be different, depending on how the ingredients are combined.

It’s complicated. For instance, if you sinter and press the fuel in an oxygen atmosphere (such as air), the uranium becomes U3O8. If it’s done in an argon or argon–hydrogen atmosphere, it will be

maintained as UO2.

“With engineering, everything has issues. That’s what I tell my students,” McDeavitt says. “You just have to choose which issues to overcome and make the system work.

“So when people ask, ‘What are you going to do about the waste?’ they’ve already assumed you have to do something with the waste. That’s already assuming it is waste and not another raw material.

“I like to assume it is a useful raw material.”

Written by Gene Charlton, first published in “Texas A&M Engineer,” 2010.

Dr. Sean McDeavitt Assistant Professorappointed 2006

2010 recipient of the Charles H. Barclay, Jr. ‘45 faculty fellow from the texas a&M University College of Engineering

B.S., M.S., and Ph.d., nuclear Engineering, Purdue University

research interests• Nuclear materials science• Nuclear fuel behavior and processing• Materials processing in the nuclear fuel cycle• High temperature materials science

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Nuclear Security Science and Policy InstituteThe Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute

(NSSPI) is a university-based entity that focuses on graduate education, research, and service on a variety of topics related to the safeguarding of nuclear materi-als and the reduction of nuclear threats. NSSPI works in collaboration with our national laboratories and other partners to develop technological solutions to problems associated with the malicious use of nuclear materials and to study policy issues related to nuclear security. NSSPI conducts research, educates students, hosts seminars, offers short courses, and provides direct support to Department of Energy (DOE) programs.

In the 2009-2010 Academic Year, NSSPI faculty, staff, and students had a number of exciting accomplishments, including: the first direct quantitative measurement of Pu in LWR spent fuel using X-ray fluorescence (in collabo-ration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory), completed the design of the SINRD (Self-Interrogation Neutron Resonance Densitometry) detector (in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory) and began acceptance testing of the instrument for safeguards measurement of fresh fuel assemblies, developed the first technique for estimating nuclear latency, demonstrated the value of directionally sensitive sensors for detecting smuggled HEU, published a textbook on India’s nuclear fuel cycle, helped coordinate and host an international workshop on proliferation resistance, deployed the Nuclear Safeguards Education Portal (http://nsspi.tamu.edu/NSEP) as an online educa-tional resource, co-hosted (with Los Alamos National Laboratory) a workshop to train faculty in nuclear safeguards education, and taught the first techni-cal course at Texas A&M University on the design and analysis of technical mechanisms to secure nuclear facilities against nuclear terrorism.

NSSPI was established by the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents in March 2006. A grant from the Department of Energy provided the initial funding. Today, NSSPI is responsible for over $5.5 million of externally-funded research at Texas A&M University.

Center for Large-scale Scientific SimulationsCLASS manages several multidisci-

plinary computational research projects involving faculty and students from nuclear engineering, aerospace engi-neering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science, statistics, and mathematics. CLASS facilitates the development of multidis-ciplinary computational research proposals across colleges and departments, and is pursuing new educational programs in computational science at Texas A&M University.

Nuclear Science CenterThis facility has a 1-megawatt TRIGA

reactor, an open “swimming pool” type research reactor operating with LEU fuel. The core is positioned 26 feet below the surface of the water and cooled by natural convection. It can be pulsed and the facility hosts a variety of other features including experimental laboratories, a large irradiation cell, beam ports, a thermal column and a pneumatic “rabbit” system.

The Nuclear Science Center (NSC) continues to play a critical role for nuclear science and engineering at Texas A&M University and the Depart-ment of Nuclear Engineering. The TRIGA reactor facility is a nationally well-respected test and learning center serving the needs of students, research-ers, industrial sponsors, and nuclear industry stakeholders. The past year, funds secured from the Department of Energy (Global Threat Reduction Initiative, or GTRI) were used to upgrade the security at the facility to reduce - to even lower levels - the risk of theft or sabotage of radioactive materials.

The NSC offers a critical and essential element of experiential learn-

Affiliated Centers & Institutesing for students in our Nuclear Engineering Department. Having a reactor on campus at a time of general resurgence of interest in nuclear power is an enviable position to be in, from the standpoint of any Nuclear Engineering educator in the country.

Nuclear Power InstituteTo respond to the challenge of develop-

ing the nuclear workforce for the operating and anticipated reactors in Texas, the Nuclear Power Institute (NPI) has put together a partnership in-volving six universities, six community colleges, industry, government agen-cies, high schools and middle schools, teachers, and civic and elected leaders. During 2009-2010, NPI was awarded a $1 million grant from the Texas Work-force Commission and a $4 million grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. NPI has developed a certificate program for university students in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineer-ing, engineering physics and engineering technology at Prairie View A&M University, Tarleton State University, Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University-Kingsville and Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

NPI has also developed active outreach programs to inform students and teachers about careers in the nuclear industry. In addition to talks at high schools, NPI has participated in college days and career nights. Additional programs have focused on underserved students. Powerful Opportunities for Women Eager and Ready for Science, Engineering and Technology (POWER SET) focusing on students ranging from sophomore to senior and emphasiz-ing STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), and Work-force Industry Training (WIT), focusing on young men, have been established.

For teachers, the Enrichment Experiences in Engineering (E3) teams teachers with nuclear engineering faculty members to develop laboratory experiences, curricula and/or demonstrations that can be taken back to their classrooms to acquaint students with basic principles related to nuclear tech-nology.

Space Engineering Research Center The Space Engineering Research Center (SERC) facility provides top-level research in the areas of thermal management, power management, nuclear and solar power, space situational awareness, and wireless power transmis-sion. In the past year, much of the Center’s activity has focused on the areas of space situational awareness and thermal management through research projects with the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Department of Energy, NASA, and several commercial sponsors. Recently, a commercialization agreement was set into place to market the creation of SERC’s research staff, the vortex phase separator. Its many space and terrestrial applications have the outlook looking bright for future projects in the area of thermal and fluid management. Through its highly-successful student program, the Systems Engineering Initiative, SERC continues to interact with Texas A&M University students, giving them not only valuable knowledge and skills, but hands-on experience in developing new technologies and applications. SERC has held true to its mission statement to “develop space engi-neering technology by teaming with industry, academia, and government.” Affiliations and past experiences with government and commercial operations have increased proposal activity and set the expectations for the Center’s success at a very high level for the remainder of this fiscal year and beyond. With many new programs and projects on the horizon, SERC looks forward to maintaining its status as a go-to center for all entities looking to advance space technology.

Center for Large-scale Scientific Simulations

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Faculty

Raymond J. JuzaitisDepartment Head and Director, Nuclear Engineering Division TEESHolder of the Sallie and Don ‘61 Davis Professorship in EngineeringPh.D., University of [email protected]

As Department Head and Professor of Nuclear Engineering, Juzaitis provides academic and ad-ministrative leadership to the largest Nuclear Engineering Department in the United States. Previous to Texas A&M, he accrued twenty-eight years of experience in the management and execution of National Security R&D programs at the Department of Energy National Laboratories. Early career focus in nuclear computational physics paved the way for a broad-based technical career that included nuclear weapons design, develop-ment, testing, and evaluation. Career assignments included two changes of station in senior advisory positions in the U.S. government: at the Penta-gon (DoD), as well as at Defense Programs in DOE/NNSA. His last sixteen years at the labs were devoted to technical/line and program management with increas-ing levels of responsibility, covering the full breadth of nuclear weapon program activities. In the mid- to late-1990’s, as X-Division Leader at Los Alamos, Juzaitis led the transi-tion in technical culture of nuclear weapon design from a nuclear testing-based paradigm to a simula-tion-based paradigm (Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship). He served in senior management (Associate Director) positions at two nuclear weapons laboratories: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Lawrence Livermore National Labo-ratory (LLNL).

During his final years at the National Laboratories, programmatic focus shifted to Nuclear Non-Pro-liferation, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism/Homeland Security programs. Juzaitis joined the department in 2007. During his tenure, he has increased the number of faculty, saw enrollment growth in the both the undergraduate and graduate pro-grams, created the “Nuclear Society and Technology Invited Speaker Se-ries,” and improved outreach activi-ties and communications with former students. Additionally, he revamped the Department’s Advisory Council to emphasize mutual relationships with the laboratories, nuclear indus-try and government.

Marvin L. AdamsProfessor Holder of the Heat Transfer Research Institute ProfessorshipDirector, Institute for National Security Education and ResearchPh.D., University of [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Computational transport theory• Large-scale scientific computing• Nuclear reactor analysis • Predictive science and engineering

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Center for Predictive Engineer-ing and Computational Science,” University of Texas at Austin, 2008-2013, Co-Principal Investigator

“Center for Radiative Shock Hydro-dynamics,” University of Michigan, 2008-2013, Co-Principal Investigator

“ARI-LA: A Framework for De-veloping Novel Detection Systems Focused on Interdicting Shielded HEU,” U.S. Department of Home-

land Security, 2007-2012, Co-Princi-pal Investigator

“Computational Research in Support of Stockpile Stewardship,” Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,” 2008-2013, Co-Principal Investigator

“Institute for Applied Mathemati-cal and Statistical Sciences,” King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), 2008-2013, Co-Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSConference ProceedingsZeyun Wu and Marvin L. Adams, “Advances in Inverse Transport Methods,” International Confer-ence on Nuclear Engineering, Xi’an, China, May 2010.

Gamal AkabaniAssociate ProfessorPh.D., Texas A&M [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Radiotherapy physics Integration of PET-CT based biological markers into radiation treatment planning Development of quality control and assurance for image-guided radiotherapy Medical physics in large animal models of cancer Proton and heavy ion therapy of cancer• Medical Nuclear Physics Research production and distil-lation of the alpha particle emitting radionuclide At-211 Production of PET radionuclides Radio-synthesis of targeted agents for diagnosis and therapy Dosimetry and microdocimetry of high LET radiations Targeted radionuclide therapy us-ing alpha particle emitting radionu-clides Development of nuclear nano-

technology platforms for the delivery of diagnostic and therapy agents• Systems Biology and Radiobiology The paradigm of stem cell and accelerated cell repopulation and dif-ferentiation after radiotherapy Genomics and proteomics studies of the long-term effects of radiation on normal tissues In vitro stem cell toxicity of low and high LET radiation Cellular DNA damage repair mechanisms after high LET radiation• Drug discovery and development Translational studies of radio-immunotherapy agents using small (rodents) and large animals models (canine) In vivo study of biological targets (cytokines, growth factors, etc.) as radiation response modifiers Convection enhanced delivery (CED) of drugs

Fred Best, P.E.Associate ProfessorDirector, Space Engineering Research CenterPh.D., Massachusetts Institute of [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Zero Gravity Two Phase Flow• Reactor Thermal Hydraulics• Interphase Transport Phenomena

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Engineering Institute Comprehen-sive Outreach Program for Under-Utilized Groups,” NASA - Johnson Space Center, 2006-2009, Co-Princi-pal Investigator

“PLSS Water Pump Development for Exploration Technology,” NASA - Johnson Space Center, 2008-2009, Co-Principal Investigator

“Support of NASA GRC and Boeing Fuel Cell and Electrolyzer Demon-stration,” NASA - Glenn Research

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Center, 2008-2009, Principal Inves-tigator

“Modeling Pore Multi-Component Evaporation,” Boeing Company, 2009, Principal Investigator

“Lunar Radiator Modeling and Analysis,” Boeing Company, 2009, Principal Investigator“Phase I Program, Adaptive Phase Management and Mixing Enhance-ment,” 2009, Principal Investigator

“A Highly Stabic Two Phase Ther-mal Management System,” Creare, 2009, Principal Investigator

“FY09 Earmark Entitled ‘Space Engineering Institute,’” NASA Shared Services Center, 2009-2011, Co-Principal Investigator

“A Highly Stabic Two Phase Ther-mal Management System - Phase II,” Creare, 2010-2011, Co-Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesL. Shao, A. Shephard, F. Best, “Com-prehensive Gas Ejector Model,” Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, July 2010.

Conference ProceedingsC. Schwendeman, R. Hay, F. Best, and C. Kurwitz, “Optimization of Various Thermal Management Tech-niques for High Thermal Loads,” SSC10-VII-4 2010 Small Satellite Conference, Logan, UT., Aug. 9-12, 2010.

M. Schuller, C. Kurwitz, F. Little, R. Oinuma, B. Larsen, J. Goldman, F. Reinis, F. Best, “Custom Unit Pump Development for the Extravehicu-lar Activity Portable Life Support System,” Proc. 40th International Conference on Environmental Sys-tems, AIAA, Barcelona, Spain, July 11-15, 2010.

L. Gaul, Z. Papas, C. Kurwitz, F. Best, “Equilibrium Interface Posi-tion During Operation of a Fixed Cylinder Vortex Separator,” Space Propulsion and Energy Forum, Feb-ruary 2010.

Shannon Bragg-SittonAssistant ProfessorPh.D., University of [email protected] INTERESTS• Applications of nuclear technol-ogy to space power and propulsion systems• Nuclear systems testing• Application of autonomous control systems to nuclear reactors• Interaction of cosmic radiation with space vehicles

SPONSORED RESEARCH“A Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a Very High Temperature Reactor Environment,” Department of Energy Nuclear Energy University Programs, 2009-2012, Co-Principal Investigator

“Low-Capacity Fission Power Systems: Rapid Development Using a Nonnuclear Test Approach,” U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Early Career Enrichment Project, 2009-2010

“Mixed Fluence Irradiation of Candi-date Alternator Materials (for application to Stirling power conversion for Lunar power system),” Sest, Inc (NASA Glenn Research Center), 2010, Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesBragg-Sitton, S.M., Godfroy, T.J., and Webster, K.L., “Improving the Fidelity of Electrically Heated Nucle-ar Systems Testing Using Simulated Neutronic Feedback,” Nuclear Engi-neering and Design, in press, DOI: 10.1016/j.nucengdes.2010.04.036 (2010).

Bragg-Sitton, S.M., Hervol, D.S., and Godfroy, T.J., “Testing of an Integrated Reactor Core Simula-tor and Power Conversion System with Simulated Reactivity Feedback in proceedings of the Nuclear and

Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS-2009),” American Nuclear Society, June 14-19, 2009, Atlanta, GA, paper 208198 (2009).

William S. CharltonAssociate ProfessorDirector, Nuclear Security Science and Policy InstitutePh.D., Texas A&M [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Developing technical mechanisms to detect, prevent and deter mali-cious uses of nuclear and radiological materials and facilities• Developing nuclear safeguards and nuclear security technologies

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Nuclear Forensics Education Award Program,” (Medical University of South Carolina) Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, 2009-2012, Princi-pal Investigator

“Security Enhancements for the Ra-dioactive Sources at TAMU,” Sandia National Laboratories, 2009-2012, Co-Principal Investigator

“Measurement and Modeling of Shielding and Attenuation Effects on Radiation Portal Monitors,” Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 2009-2010, Principal Investigator

“Training for DOE Security Up-grades to TAMU Facilities,” Sandia National Laboratories, 2009, Co-Principal Investigator

“Nuclear Security Science Gradu-ate Certificate at TAMU,” Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2009-2010, Principal Investigator

“Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute: Enhancing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime,” National Nuclear Security Administration, 2006-2010, Principal Investigator

“A Framework for Developing

Novel Detection Systems Focused on Interdicting Shielded HEU,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2008-2012, Principal Investigator

“Piezoelectric Sensors on American Cockroaches,” National Science Foundation, 2008-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Real-Time Detection of Actinide Compositions in the UREX+ Pro-cess,” U.S. Department of Energy, 2007-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Development of Joint US-Russia Education Program,” Department of Education (through University of Maryland), 2007-2009, Co-Principal Investigator

“Russian Academic Program in Nonproliferation and International Security,” U.S. Department of Energy (DOE/NA-24) through West Texas A&M University, 2005-2009, Principal Investigator

“Development of Verification Meth-ods for Spent Fuel Discharge,” Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2007-2010, Principal Investigator

“Technical Support for DOE Sister Laboratory Program,” Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 2007-2011, Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSBooks PublishedT.V.K. Woddi, W.S. Charlton, and P. Nelson, India’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Unraveling the Impact of the U.S.-India Nuclear Accord, Synthe-sis Lectures on Nuclear Technology and Society, Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2009.

Journal ArticlesB. Goddard, W.S. Charlton, and S.M. McDeavitt, “Real-Time Detection of UREX+3A Extraction Streams for Materials Accountancy,” JNMM, 38(1), pp. 34-39 (2009).

W.B. Wilson, R.T. Perry, W.S. Charlton, and T.A. Parish, “Sources: A Code for Calculating (alpha, n), Spontaneous Fission, and Delayed Neutron Sources and Spectra,” Progress in Nuclear Energy, 51, pp. 608-613 (2009).

Conference Proceedings B. Goddard, W.S. Charlton, and A.L. Lousteau, “Mass Verification Method for Actinide Mixtures Using a Multi-

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Energy Spectrum Active Well Coin-cidence Counter,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

S. Saavedra, W. Charlton, A. Solodov, and M. Ehinger, “Using NDA Techniques to Improve Safe-guards Metrics on Burnup Quanti-fication and Plutonium Content in LWR SNF,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

J.S. Feener and W.S. Charlton, “The Impact of Front End Non-Destructive Assay Techniques on Accountancy Systems at Reprocess-ing Facilities,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

A.A. Solodov, W.S. Charlton, S. Saavedra, and L. Khodalev, “The Use of Self-induced XRF to Quan-tify the Pu Content in MOX Spent Nuclear Fuel,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

C.M. Marianno, D.R. Boyle, W.S. Charlton, and G.M. Gaukler, “A Guide for Detector Development and Deployment,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

A.S. Stafford, W.S. Charlton, and C.R. Freeman, “Exploration of X-Ray Fluorescence Spent Nuclear Fuel Source Term,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

K.A. Miller and W.S. Charlton, “An Inverse Source Location Algorithm for Radiation Portal Monitor Ap-plications,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

J. Miller and W. Charlton, “Measure-ment of Uranium in Bio Matrices for Nuclear Forensic Purposes,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

S. Chirayath, W. Charlton, A. Staf-ford, C. Myers, B. Goddard, J. Al-fred, M. Carroll, M. Sternat, and E. Rauch, “Risk Informed Safeguards Integration Studies for a Fast Reac-tor Fuel Cycle,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

C. Ryan, C. Marianno, W. Charlton, A. Solodov, and J. Livesay, “Deter-mining the Effects of Construction Materials on Background Readings for Second Line of Defense Program Portal Monitoring Systems,” Pro-ceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

G.R. Hundley and W.S. Charlton, “Determining Acquisition Pathways for a Radiological Dispersal Device,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

A.M. LaFleur, W.S. Charlton, H.O. Menlove, M.T. Swinhoe, S.Y. Lee, and S.J. Tobin, “Experimental Benchmark of MCNPX Calculations Against Self-Interrogation Neutron Resonance Densitometry (SINRD) Fresh Fuel Measurements,” Proceed-ings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

D.G. Ford, W.S. Charlton, and K. Ragusa, “Safeguards Education at Texas A&M University,” Proceed-ings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

D.G. Ford, W.S. Charlton, R. Tribble, C.M. Folden III, and W. Rundell, “Nuclear Forensics Certificate Program Development at TAMU,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

C.T. Myers, W.S. Charlton, and D.G. Ford, “Risk Analysis and Manage-ment of State Nuclear Security Measures,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

C.A. Gariazzo, W. Charlton, and

K.L. Peddicord, “U.S.-Russian Aca-demic Collaborations at Texas A&M University,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

J. White, W.S. Charlton, and A. Solodov, “Applications of X-ray Fluorescence Fission Product Cor-relations for Nuclear Forensics,” Pro-ceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

M.R. Sternat, W.S. Charlton, T.S. Nichols, R. Webb, and D.M. Beals, “Reactor Physics Modeling of Spent Nuclear Research Reactor Fuel for SNM Attribution and Nuclear Forensics,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

W.S. Charlton, M.D. Zentner, and A.M. LaFleur, “Results from the 2010 International Workshop for Us-ers of Proliferation Assessment Tools Held at Texas A&M University,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

K.A. Miller and W.S. Charlton, “An Inverse Method for Locating a Ra-dioactive Source Using a Distributed Array of Detectors,” Transactions of the 2010 American Nuclear Society Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, June 13-17, 2010. D. Sweeney and W.S. Charlton, “Benchmarking TransLAT for Fis-sion Product Generation,” Proceed-ings of the PHYSOR 2010, Pitts-burgh, PA, May 9-14, 2010.

A.M. LaFleur, W.S. Charlton, H.O. Menlove, M.T. Swinhoe, and S. Tobin, “Comparison of Using Self-Interrogation Neutron Resonance Densitometry (SINRD) versus the Fork Detector (FDET) to Measure Partial Defects in Spent Fuel As-semblies,” Transactions of the 2009 American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting, Washington, D.C., Novem-ber 15-19, 2009.

W.S. Charlton, D.G. Ford, W.D. Reece, W.H. Hsu, and K. Ragusa, “Nuclear Safeguards Education Portal at Texas A&M University,” Transactions of the 2009 American

Nuclear Society Winter Meeting, Washington, D.C., November 15-19, 2009.

D.J. Sweeney and W.S. Charlton, “Latency as a Basis for Safeguards,” Transactions of the 2009 American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting, Washington, D.C., November 15-19, 2009.

John FordAssociate ProfessorABET CoordinatorPh.D., University of [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• The effects of terrestrial and cosmic radiation on tissues, in particular the damaging effects of radiation on respiratory tissue SPONSORED RESEARCH“Small Active Dosimetry System For Lunar Extravehicular Activity Mis-sions: Spacesuit and Tool-Box Ap-plications,” National Space Biomedi-cal Research Institute, 2007 - 2010, Co-Principal Investigator “Microbeam Irradiations of C. elegans,” Loma Linda University Medical Center, 2008 - 2010, Co-Principal Investigator “Center for Bio-nanotechnology and Environmental Research (C-BER),” Texas Southern University, 2009 - 2010, Co-Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesJ. W. Poston, Sr. and J. R. Ford, “How do we combine science and regulations for decision making fol-lowing a terrorist incident involving radioactive materials,” Health Phys-ics 97(5), 537-541, (2009).

J. K Wagner, J. A. Dillon, E. K. Blythe, and J. Ford, “Dose character-ization of the RadSource 2400 X-ray

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irradiator for oyster pasteurization,” Applied Radiation and Isotopes 67(2), 334-339 (2009).

Stephen GueterslohAssistant ProfessorPh.D., Colorado State [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• The effects of high-energy heavy charged particles interacting in mat-ter• Investigations related to the ben-eficial uses of accelerated ions as applied to non-invasive tumor treat-ment and control• Space weather forecasting and prediction

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesS.Guetersloh, N. Zapp, “Energetic Particles and Manned Space Flight”, Chapter in “Heliphysics II. Space Storms and Radiation: Causes and Effect,” Cambridge Press (2010).

Zeitlin, C., Guetersloh, S., Heil-bronn, L., Miller, J., Fukumura, A., Iwata, Y., Murakami, T., Sihver, L., “Nuclear Fragmentation Database for GCR Transport Code Development, Advances in Space Research,” doi: 10.1016/j.asr.2010.04.035 (2010).

Zhou, D., Semones, E., Guetersloh, S., Zapp, N., Weyland, M., Ben-ton, E.R., “The experimental and simulated LET spectrum and charge spectrum from CR-39 detectors exposed to irons near CRaTER at BNL,” Radiation Measurements, doi: 10.1016/j.radmeas.2010.02.014, (2010).

S. Guetersloh, M. VanBaalen, C. Zeitlin, B. Gersey, “Radiation Hazards and NASA’s Exploration of Mars,” chapter in “Particle Radiation Hazards en route to Mars”, Interna-tional Aeronautics and Astronautics, (Submitted: Feb. 2009).

A. Posner, S. Guetersloh, B. Heber, O. Rother, A New Trend in Forecast-ing Solar Radiation Hazards, Space Weather, 7, S05001 (2009).

Conference ProceedingsS. Guetersloh, J. Miller, L. Taylor, C. Zeitlin, L. Heilbronn, T. Komi-yama, M. DiGiuseppe, Y. Iwata, T. Murakami , “Lunar Soil as In-Situ Shielding,” Proceedings of Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space 2009 (2009).

Yassin A. HassanProfessor Joint Appointment with Mechanical EngineeringAssociate Department HeadPh.D., University of [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Computational and experimental thermal hydraulics• Reactor Safety• Fluid Mechanics• Two-phase flow• Turbulence and laser velocimetry• Imaging techniques

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Experimental and CFD Analysis of Advanced Convective Cooling Sys-tem,” U.S. Department of Energy, 2007-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Two-Phase Flow Measurements in a Fuel Rod Bundle,” Areva NP, 2007-2009, Principal Investigator

“Devices for Effective Sampling of Bioaerosol,” U.S. Army-Edgewood Research, Development and Engi-neering Center, 2008-2009, Co-Prin-cipal Investigator

“Computational Fluid Dynamics for Nuclear Applications Curriculum Development to Facilitate Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century,” Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2008-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Basic Research on High Tempera-ture Gas Reactor Thermal Fluid and Reactor Physics,” Oregon State University, 2008-2013, Co-Principal Investigator

“Measurements of Turbulent Flow in Rod Bundles Using Time-Resolved Particle Image Velocimetry Tech-nique,” GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas LLC, 2009-2011, Principal Investigator

“Studies on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reac-tor,” Battelle Energy Alliance/Idaho National Laboratory, 2009, Principal Investigator

“Computational Fluid Dynamics Studies for Rod Bundles,” Electric Power Research Institute, 2009-2010, Principal Investigator

“Two-Phase Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Methodology De-velopment,” Westinghouse Electric Company, 2009-2010, Principal Investigator

“Nuclear Energy University Pro-grams - Infrastructure Report,” U.S. Department of Energy, 2009-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Fundamental Investigation of Trans-port Phenomena in Convectively Actuated Biochemical Reactors,” National Science Foundation, 2009-2012, Co-Principal Investigator

“Computational Fluid Dynamics Model Development and Validation for High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Cavity Cooling System Ap-plication,” Battelle Energy Alliance/Idaho National Laboratory, 2009-2012, Principal Investigator

“Investigation on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reactor,” Battelle Energy Alliance/Idaho National Laboratory, 2009-2012, Principal Investigator

“Study of Air Ingress Across the Duct During the Accident Condi-tions,” Battelle Energy Alliance/Ida-ho National Laboratory, 2009-2012, Co-Principal Investigator

“Investigation of the Flow Behavior that Can Occur in the Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS),” University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2009-2010, Principal Investigator

“High-Resolution Study of Particle Transport and Deposition on Envi-ronmental Surfaces,” U.S. Depart-ment of Defense - Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 2009-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Studies on the Core Bypass Flow in a Very High Temperature Reac-tor,” Battelle Energy Alliance/Idaho National Laboratory, 2010, Principal Investigator

“Infrastructure Enhancement Via Optical, Ultrasonic and Thermal Im-aging Equipment,” U.S. Department of Energy, 2010-2011, Co-Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesA. Frisani, Y. Hassan, V. Ugaz, “Three-Dimensional Analysis the Very High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors Cavity Cooling System Us-ing Computational Fluid Dynamics,” accepted for publication Nuclear Technology, (2010).

C.E.Estrada-Perez, Y. Hassan, “PTV Experiments of Subcooled Boiling Flow through a Vertical Rectangular Channel,” International Journal of Multiphase Flow, (2010).

E. Dominguez-Ontiveros, S. Forten-berry, Y. A. Hassan, “Experimental Observations of Flow Modifica-tions in Nanofluid Boiling Utilizing Particle Image Velocimetry,” Nuclear Engineering and Design Vol. 240, pp. 299-304 (2010).

K. Kang, Y. Hassan, “A Comparative Study of Direct-Forcing Immersed Boundary-Lattice Boltzmann Methods for Stationary Complex Boundaries,” International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids,” (2010).

S. Ozturk, Y. Hassan, and V. Ugaz, “Interfacial Complexation Explains Anomalous Diffusion in Nanoflu-ids,” Nano Letters, 10, pp. 665-671, (2010).

E. Dominguez-Ontivores, S. Forten-berry and Y. Hassan, “Non-intrusive Experimental Investigation of Flow Behavior Inside a 5x5 Rod Bundle with Spacer Grids using PIV and MIR,” Nuclear Engineering and Design Journal, Vol. 239, (2010).

Conference SummariesC. Kang, E. Dominguez-Ontiveros

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and Y. Hassan, “Pressure Drop in a Pebble Bed Reactor,” presented at 2010 ANS Meeting, June 2010, San Diego, California and published in ANS Transaction, Vol. 102, 2010.

N. Amini and Y. Hassan, “Applica-tion PIV and POD Techniques to Re-construct the Vorticity Fields of Jet Flows Injecting into a Rod Bundle,” presented at 2010 ANS Meeting, June 2010, San Diego, California and published in ANS Transaction, Vol. 102, 2010.

A. Frisani, V. Ugaz and Y. Has-san, “On the Effect of Turbulence Modeling and Near-Wall Treatment in Simulating Heat Exchanger in the Reactor Cavity Cooling System Using STAR-CCM+ CFD Code,” presented at 2009 ANS Winter Meet-ing, November 2009, Washington, D.C. and published in ANS Transac-tion, Vol. 101, 2009.

N. Amini and Y. Hassan, “Proper Orthogonal Decomposition Analysis of Jet Flows Injecting into a Rod Bundle,” presented at 2009 ANS Winter Meeting, November 2009, Washington, D.C. and published in ANS Transaction, Vol. 101, 2009.

William H. MarlowProfessorUndergraduate Program CoordinatorPh.D., University of [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Physics of molecular clusters and small particle interactions - aerosols• Applications in materials, radioac-tivity and disperse materials• Environmental and health protec-tion

SPONSORED RESEARCH“High-resolution Study of Particle Transport and Deposition on Envi-ronmental Surfaces,” U.S. Depart-ment of Defense: Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 2009-2011,

Co-Principal Investigator

Sean M. McDeavittAssistant ProfessorPh.D., Purdue [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Nuclear materials science• Nuclear fuel behavior and process-ing• Materials processing in the nuclear fuel cycle• High temperature materials science

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Powder Metallurgy of Uranium Al-loy Fuels for TRU-Burning Fast Re-actors,” U.S. Department of Energy, 2007-2010, Principal Investigator

“Fuel Cycle and Materials Laborato-ry Capability Upgrade: Themophysi-cal Property Analyses for Advanced Fuels,” U.S. Department of Energy, 2007-2009, Principal Investigator

“Real-Time Detection of Ac-tinide Compositions in the UREX+Process,” U.S. Department of Energy, 2007-2011, Principal Investigator

“Fuel Development Support - Bat-telle Energy Alliance, 2008-2009, Co-Principal Investigator

“Development and Thermal Char-acterization of Enhanced Thermal Conductivity U02-BeO Fuel,” Purdue University, 2008-2010, Principal Investigator

“Fuel Performance Experiments an Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels,” Battelle Energy Alliance, 2009-2012, Co-Principal Investigator

“Experiments in Spent Fuel,” Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 2010, Principal Investigator

“RERTR Fuel Development: Particle Coatings & Thermal Properties,” Battelle Energy Alliance/Idaho National Laboratory, 2010-2011, Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesLuis H. Ortega, Michael D. Kamin-ski and S.M. McDeavitt, “Pollucite and Feldspar Formation in Sintered Bentonite for Nuclear Waste Immo-bilization,” accepted for publication in J. Applied Clay Science (2010).

A.J. Parkison and S.M. McDeavitt, “Hydride Formation Process Devel-opment for the Powder Metallurgi-cal Recycle of Zircaloy,” accepted for publication in Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A (2010). Editor’s Choice for Open Access Publication

B. Goddard, W.S. Charlton and S.M. McDeavitt, “Development of a Real-Time Detection Strategy for Process Monitoring during Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing using the UREX+3a Method,” accepted for publication in Nuclear Engineering and Design (2010).

J. Lapinskas, S. Zielinski, J. A. Webster, R. P. Taleyarkhan and S.M. McDeavitt, “Tension Metastable Fluid Detection Systems for Special Nuclear Material Detection and Monitoring,” accepted for publica-tion in Nuclear Engineering and Design (2010).

E.G. Fu, J. Carter, M. Martin, Q. Xie, X. Z., Y.Q. Wang, R. Littleton, S.M. McDeavitt, and L. Shao, “Ar-ion-milling-induced structural changes of Cu50Zr45Ti5 metallic glass,” Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B 268, 545 (2010).

B. Goddard, W.S. Charlton, and S.M. McDeavitt, “Real-Time Detection of UREX+3a Extraction Streams for Materials Accountancy,” Journal of Nuclear Materials Management 38(1): 34-39 (2009).

A.R. Totemeier and S.M. McDeavitt, “Powder Metallurgical Fabrication of Zirconium Matrix Cermet Nuclear Fuels,” Journal of Materials Science, 44(20): 5494-5500 (2009).

J. Carter, E.G. Fu, M. Martin, G. Xie, X. Zhang, Y.Q. Wang, D. Wijesu-ndera, X.M. Wang, Wei-Kan Chu, S.M. McDeavitt and L. Shao, “Ion

Irradiation Induced Nanocrystal Formation in Amorphous Zr55Cu30Al-

10Ni5 Alloy,” Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B 267(17): 2827-2831 (2009).

Conference ProceedingsS.M. McDeavitt, M.J. Naramore, J.C. Ragusa, S.T. Revankar, A.A. Solomon and J. Malone, “Evaluation of High Thermal Conductivity Oxide Nuclear Fuel Concept Containing Beryllium,” Accepted in Proceedings of 2010 LWR Fuel Performance/TopFuel/WRFPM, Orlando, Florida, USA, September 26-29, 2010, Paper 138 (2010).

N. Jahangiri, A.G. Raraz, J.E. Indacochea and S.M. McDeavitt, “UREX+ Centrifugal Contactor Corrosion in HNO3-HF Aqueous Solutions,” NACE International: CORROSION 2010, March 14-18, 2010, San Antonio, TX, Paper No. NACE-10234 (2010).

S. Dasari, A.G. Raraz, J.E. Indaco-chea and S.M. McDeavitt, “UREX+ Process: 304L Stainless Steel Centrifugal Contactor Corrosion due to Hydrodynamic Effects,” NACE International: CORROSION 2010, March 14-18, 2010, San Antonio, TX, Paper No. NACE-10235 (2010).

L.H. Ortega, M.D. Kaminiski, and S.M. McDeavitt, “Sintered Clay Waste Form for Immobilization of Cesium and Strontium Liquid Waste,” Materials Challenges in Alternative & Renewable Energy (Energy 2010), February 21-25, 2010, Cocoa Beach, FL (2010).

B. Goddard, W.S. Charlton, and S.M. McDeavitt, “Real-Time Detection of UREX+3a Extraction Streams for Materials Accountancy,” 50th Insti-tute of Nuclear Materials Manage-ment (INMM) Annual Meeting, July 12-16, 2009, Tucson, AZ (2009).Winner: J.D. Williams Student Paper Award, First Place

J. Lapinskas, Y. Xu, S. Zielinski, J. A. Webster, R. P. Taleyarkhan and S.M. McDeavitt, “Tension Meta-stable Fluid Detection Systems for Special Nuclear Material Detection and Monitoring,” Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE-17), Brussels, Belgium, July 12-16, 2009, Paper No. ICONE17-75727, (2009). International Paper

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L.H. Ortega, M.D. Kaminski, and S.M. McDeavitt, “Immobilization of Liquid Nitrate Waste Containing Cesium and Strontium in Sintered Bentonite Ceramics,” Presented at Global 2009: The Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Sustainable Options & Industrial Perspectives Paris, France, September 6-11, (2009).

Jim MorelProfessorDirector, Center for Large-scale Scientific SimulationsGraduate Academic AdvisorPh.D., University of New [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Discretization techniques and asso-ciated multi-level solution techniques for neutral-particle and charged particle diffusion and transport on unstructured meshes and structured meshes with adaptive refinement• Monte Carlo methods and hybrid deterministic/Monte Carlo methods• Discretization and solution tech-niques for multiphysics/multiscale calculations SPONSORED RESEARCH“Capsaicin Project Support and 2D Neutron Transport,” Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2006-2010, Principal Investigator “Center for Radiative Shock Hydro-dynamics,” DOE/PSAAP - subcon-tract to University of Michigan, 2008 -2013, Co-Principal Investigator “Center for Predictive Engineer-ing and Computational Science (PECOS),” DOE/PSAAP - subcon-tract to University of Texas, 2008-2013, Co-Principal Investigator “Support of Stockpile Stewardship Program,” Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 2008-2011, Co-Principal Investigator “ARI-LA: A Framework for De-

veloping Novel Detection Systems Focused on Interdicting Shielded HEU,” Department of Homeland Security, 2007-2012, Co-Principal Investigator RECENT PUBLICATIONS Journal ArticlesLei Zhu and Jim E. Morel, ”Dis-continuous Least-Squares Spatial Discretization Schemes for the 1-D Slab-Geometry Sn Equations,’’ Nuclear Science and Engineering, 164, 205–220 (2010). T.M. Evans, K.T. Clarno, and J.E. Morel, ”A Transport Acceleration Scheme for Multigroup Discrete Or-dinates with Upscattering,’’ Nuclear Science and Engineering, 165, 1-13 (2010). Teresa S. Bailey, Jim E. Morel, and Jae Chang, “Asymptotic Diffusion-Limit Accuracy of Sn Angular Differencing Schemes,’’ Nuclear Science and Engineering, 165, 149-169 (2010).

Jeffery D. Densmore, James S. War-sa, Robert B. Lowrie, Jim E. Morel, “Stability Analysis of Implicit Time Discretizations for the Compton-Scattering Fokker-Planck Equation,’’ Journal of Computational Physics,228, 5933-5960 (2009).

Paul NelsonProfessor EmeritusAssociate Director of International Programs, NSSPIPh.D., University of New [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Transport theory• Computational methods• Management of nuclear materials

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Technical Support Balance of Plant Model Development,” STP Nuclear Operating Company, 2002-2010, Principal Investigator“ARI-LA: A Framework for De-

veloping Novel Detection Systems Focused on Interdicting Shielded HEU,” U.S. Department of Home-land Security, 2008-2010, Co-Princi-pal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesP. Nelson and S. Sprecher, “Are Sensitive Technologies Enablers of Civil Nuclear Power? An Empirical Study,” Atoms for Peace: An Inter-national Journal,” Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 93-112 (2010).

P. Nelson, “Reassessing the Nuclear Renaissance,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,” Vol. 66, No. 4, pp. 11-12, (2010).

S. Rodgers, C. Betancourt, E. Kee, F. Yilmaz and P. Nelson, “Integrated Power Recovery Using Markov Modeling,” ASME Journal of Engi-neering for Gas Turbines and Power, (2010).

Book ChapterP. Nelson, “Nuclear Disarmament: Can Risk Analysis Inform the Debate?” Causes and Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation - A Quantita-tive Analysis Approach, June 2010.

Conference ProceedingsS. Rodgers, C. Betancourt, E. Kee, F. Yilmaz and P. Nelson, “Integrated Power Recovery Using Markov Modeling,” 18th International Confer-ence on Nuclear Engineering, China, February 2010.

Kenneth L. PeddicordProfessorDirector, Nuclear Power InstitutePh.D., University of [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Behavior of nuclear fuels• Reactor systems and designs• Fissile materials disposition, MOX fuels• Generation IV nuclear power

systems• Nuclear generated hydrogen• Nuclear workforce

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Phase II of the Texas Nuclear Workforce Development Initiative: Oversight and Coordination,” Texas Workforce Commission, 2009-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Phase II of the Texas Nuclear Workforce Development Initia-tive: Certification Program,” Texas Workforce Commission, 2009-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Phase II of the Texas Nuclear Workforce Development Initiative: Nuclear Engineering Recruiting,” Texas Workforce Commission, 2009-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Phase II of the Texas Nuclear Workforce Development Initiative: Nuclear Science Center,” 2009-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSConference ProceedingsK. L. Peddicord, “Coordination of University, Vocational School, High School and Industry: Education and Training for Nuclear Power,” International Conference on Human Resource Development for Introduc-ing and Expanding Nuclear Power Programmes, International Atomic Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, March 17, 2010.

K. L. Peddicord and Valerie Segovia, “The New Nuclear Workforce--Responding to the Challenge,” 13th Annual Texas Workforce Confer-ence, Texas Workforce Commission, Grapevine, TX, December 3, 2009.

John W. PostonProfessorPh.D., Georgia Institute of [email protected]

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RESEARCH INTERESTS• External dosimetry• Internal dosimetry

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Phase II of the Texas Nuclear Workforce Development Initiative: Oversight and Coordination,” Texas Workforce Commission, 2009-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Phase II of the Texas Nuclear Workforce Development Initia-tive: Certification Program,” Texas Workforce Commission, 2009-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Phase II of the Texas Nuclear Workforce Development Initiative: Nuclear Engineering Recruiting,” Texas Workforce Commission, 2009-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Phase II of the Texas Nuclear Workforce Development Initiative: Nuclear Science Center,” 2009-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Voluntary Security Enhance-ments for the Radioactive Source at TAMU,” Sandia National Labo-ratories, 2009-2013, Co-Principal Investigator

“Low Level Radioactive Waste Facility Licensing Review,” Texas Commission of Environmental Qual-ity, 2008-2009, Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesC.H. Kim, S. K. Cho, J. Jeong, W. E. Bolch, W. D. Reece, and J.W. Poston, Sr., “Development of New Two-Dosimeter Algorithm for Effec-tive Dose in ICRP Publication 103,” accepted for publication in Health Physics (2010).

J. W. Poston, Sr. and J. R. Ford, “How Do We Combine Science and Regulations for Decision Mak-ing Following a Terrorist Incident Involving Radioactive Materials?,” Health Physics 97(5), 537-541, (2009).

Book ChapterK. F. Eckerman, J. W. Poston, Sr. and W. E. Bolch, “The ORNL Styl-ized Mathematical Models,” chapter in Handbook of Anatomical Models for Radiation Dosimetry, X. George Xu and Keith F. Eckerman, Eds., CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, Boca Raton, FL, 2009.

Jean RagusaAssociate ProfessorAssociate Director, Institute for Scientific ComputationPh.D., Institut National Polytechnique de [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Development of advanced numeri-cal techniques for the simulation of radiation transport and multiphysics phenomena• Reactor physics research to develop new fuel assembly designs for Light Water Reactors

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Adaptive Solution of the Neutron Transport Equation for Nuclear Reactor and Shielding Applications,” Department of Energy, 2007- 2011, Principal Investigator

“3-D Deep Penetration Neutron Imaging Of Thick Absorbing And Diusive Objects Using Transport Theory,” Department of Energy - NEER, 2007-2011, Principal Inves-tigator

“Analysis Of Advanced Fuel As-semblies And Core Designs For The Current And Next Generations Of LWRS,” Department of En-ergy - NERI, 2007-2011, Principal Investigator

“Neutronic / Thermal-Hydraulic Coupling Techniques For Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor Simulations,” Department of Energy - NERI, 2007-2010, Principal Investigator

“Transport in Stochastic Media and Nonlinear Adjoint-Based Sensitivity for Multiphysics Simulations,” Idaho National Laboratory, 2010, Principal Investigator

“A Framework for Developing Novel Detection Systems Focused on In-terdicting Shielded HEU,” National Science Foundation/DHS/DNSO,

2007-2012, Co-Principal Investigator

“Development of Joint US-Russia Educational Program on Advanced Energy Technology,” Department of Education, 2007-2009, Co-Principal Investigator

“High Fidelity 3-D Core Model for Light Water Reactor Nuclear Reac-tors,” Idaho National Laboratory, 2008-2009, Principal Investigator

“Development of SCALE-based Educational Modules to Innovate Reactor Physics and Criticality Safety Curricula,” Nuclear Regula-tory Commission, 2008-2009, Co-Principal Investigator

“High-Fidelity Space-Time Adaptive Multiphysics Simulations in Nuclear Engineering,” Department of En-ergy - Nuclear Energy University Programs, 2009-2012, Co-Principal Investigator

“High Fidelity Core Models for Multiphysics Reactor Simulations,” Idaho National Laboratory, 2010-2011, Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesJean Ragusa, Yaqi Wang, “A Two-Mesh Adaptive Mesh Refinement Technique for SN Neutral-Particle Transport Using a Higher-Order DGFEM,” Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, 233(12), pp. 3178-3188 (2010).

Jean Ragusa, Yaqi Wang, “Adap-tive Mesh Refinement Techniques for Diffusion-Synthetic-Accelerated Discrete-Ordinates Neutral Particle transport,” Il Nuovo Cimento, 33 (1), pp. 215-222 (2010).

Bruno Turcksin, Jean C. Ragusa, Wolfgang Bangerth “Goal-Oriented h-adaptivity for the Multigroup SPN Equations,” Nucl. Sci. and Eng., 165, pp. 305-319 (2010).

Yaqi Wang, Jean Ragusa, “Diffusion Synthetic Acceleration for High-Order Discontinuous Finite Element SN Transport Schemes and Applica-tion to Locally Refined Unstructured Meshes,” Nucl. Sci. and Eng., Issue, 165, pp. 145-166, (2010).

Yaqi Wang, Jean C. Ragusa, “Ap-plication of hp Adaptivity to the Multigroup Diffusion Equations,” Nucl. Sci. and Eng., 161 (1), pp.

22–48 (2009).

Yaqi Wang, Wolfgang Bangerth, Jean C. Ragusa, “Three-dimensional h-Adaptivity for the Multi- group Neutron Diffusion Equations,” Progress in Nuclear Energy, 51, pp. 543–555 (2009).

Vijay Mahadevan, Jean C. Ragusa “Consistent and Accurate Schemes for Coupled Neutronics Thermal-Hydraulics Reactor Analysis,” Nucl. Eng. and Des., 239, pp. 566–579, (2009).

Timothy Rogers, Jean C. Ragusa, Stephen Schultz, Robert St-Clair “Optimization of PWR Fuel Assem-bly Radial Enrichment and Burnable Poison Location based on Simulated Annealing,” Nucl. Eng. and Des., 239, pp. 1019–1029, (2009).

Yaqi Wang, Jean C. Ragusa, “A High-order Discontinuous Galerkin Method for the SN Transport Equa-tions on 2D Unstructured Triangular Meshes,” Annals of Nuclear Energy, 36, pp. 931–939, (2009).

Yaqi Wang, Jean C. Ragusa, “On the Convergence of DGFEM Applied to the Discrete Ordinates Transport Equation for Structured and Unstruc-tured Triangular Meshes,” Nucl. Sci. and Eng., 163(1), 56-72, (2009).

Sunil S. Chirayath, Richard Metcalf, Gordon Hollenbeck, Jean Ra-gusa, Paul Nelson, “Neutronic and Nonproliferation Characteristics of (PuO2-U2) and (Pu2-Th2) as Fast Reactor Fuels,” Nucl. Eng. and Des., 239, pp. 1916-1924 (2009).

Conference ProceedingsSunil Chirayath, Jean Ragusa, Paul Nelson, “Thorium blended and Regular MOX Burn-up Studies for Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Safeguards,” Proceedings of the INMM 50th Annual Meeting, July 12-16, 2009, Tucson, AZ.

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Dan ReeceProfessorDirector, Nuclear Science CenterPh.D., Georgia Institute of [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Radiation transport• Assessment of effective dose equivalent• Medical application of radioiso-topes• Dosimetry• Uses for research reactors

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Phase II of the Texas Nuclear Workforce Development Initiative: Nuclear Science Center,” Texas Workforce Commission, 2009-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Y-12 Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI),” U.S. Department of Energy, 2009-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Safety Curriculum Development to Facilitate Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century,” U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2007-2008, Co-Princi-pal Investigator

“TEES Technical Support for LLNL Sister Laboratory Program,” Law-rence Livermore National Security, 2007-2011, Co-Principal Investigator

“Innovations in Nuclear Infrastruc-ture and Education,” U.S. Depart-ment of Energy-Idaho Operations Office, 2002-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Voluntary Security Enhance-ments for the Radioactive Source at TAMU,” Sandia National Labo-ratories, 2009-2013, Co-Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesGeorge Xi Xu, and Keith F Ecker-man, editors. Handbook of Anatomi-

cal Models for Radiation Dosimetry, Chapter 18: “External Radiation Exposures in Nuclear Power Plants,” WD Reece, CH Kim, XG Xu. “Se-ries in Medical Physics and Biomed-ical Engineering” (2010). C. H. Kim, S. K. Cho, J. Jeong, Wesley E. Bolch, Warren D. Reece, John W. Poston, Sr., “Development of New Two-dosimeter Algorithm for Effective Dose in ICRP Publica-tion 103,” Health Physics Journal, accepted, in press, (2010).

Conference ProceedingsReece, W.D., “LVNAA at the Texas A&M Nuclear Science Center,” In-vited paper at the IAEA 1st Research Co-ordination Meeting, Vienna, Austria, January 19-23, 2009.

Lin ShaoAssistant ProfessorPh.D., University of [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Radiation materials science and materials degradation under extreme conditions• Nuclear fuel and reactor structural component development• Ion beam characterization and modification of materials• Multiscale modeling including ab initio calculation, molecular dynamics simulation and continuum method• Advanced sensor, detector and microelectronics

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Band-gap Engineering for En-hanced Photoemission of self-assembled Au and Ag nanoparticles embedded in monocrystalline semi-conductors,” The Robert A. Welch Foundation, 2010-2012, Principal Investigator

“Radiation Response and Defect Dynamics in Strained Si,” National Science Foundation, 2009-2012,

Principal Investigator “Radiation Response and Stability of Nanostructured Materials (T91 and SiC),” National Science Foundation, 2009-2014, Principal Investigator “Irradiation Testing and Molecular Modeling of Irradiation-Assisted Diffusion and Microstructured Evolution,” Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC-Idaho National Laboratory, 2009-2012, Principal Investigator “Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels,” Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory, 2009-2012, Co-Principal Investigator “Development of Radiation Tolerant Alloys for Generation IV Reactors,” U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commis-sion, 2008-2011, Principal Investiga-tor

“Development of Nanostructured Superior-Strength Alloy by Ion/Elec-tron Irradiation of Metallic Glasses,” Siemens Power Generation, 2007-2008, Principal Investigator “Optoelectronic Properties of Self-Assembled Metal Nanoparticles Embedded in Monocrystalline Si,” The Robert A. Welch Foundation, 2007-2010, Principal Investigator “Safety Curriculum Development to Facilitate Nuclear Energy in the 21st Century,” U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2007-2008, Co-Princi-pal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesL. Shao, “Beam dispersion of ions penetrating through an amorphous compound binary layer,” Nucl. Instrum. Methods. Phys. Res. B, 268, 1399 (2010).

W. Hua, S-D Yao, N.D. Theodore, M. Martin, A. Aitkaliyeva, and L Shao, “Ion Irradiation induced bubble relaxation in SiC,” Radiation Effects and Defects in Solids, 165, 388 (2010).

W. Hua, S-D Yao, N.D. Theodore, X.M. Wang, W-K. Chu, M. Martin and L. Shao, “Ion Irradiation Induced Athermal Annealing of Helium Bubbles in SiC,” Nucl. Instrum. Methods. Phys. Res. B, 268, 2325

(2010).

L. Shao and L.H. Peng, “A Pearson VII Distribution Function for Fast Calculation of Dechanneling and An-gular Dispersion of Beams,” Nucl. Instrum. Methods. Phys. Res. B, 267, 3597 (2009).

Assel Aitkaliyeva, M.C. McCarthy, M. Martin, E.G. Fu, D. Wijesundera, X. Wang, W-K Chu, H-K Jeong, and L. Shao, “Defect Formation and Annealing Kinetics in Ion Irradi-ated Carbon Nanotube Buckpapers,” Nucl. Instrum. Methods. Phys. Res. B, 267, 3443 (2009).

Nan Li, M. Martin, O. Anderoglu, A. Misra, L. Shao, H. Wang, and X. Zhang, “He Ion Irradiation Damage in Al/Nb Multilayers,” J. Appl. Phys. 105, 123522 (2009).

Jesse Carter, E.G. Fu, M. Martin, G.Q. Xie, X. Zhang, Y.Q. Wang, D. Wijesundera, X.M. Wang, Wei-Kan Chu, Sean McDeavitt, and L. Shao, “Ion Irradiation Induced Nanocrystal Formation in Amorphous Zr55Cu-

30Al10Ni5 Alloy,” Nucl. Instrum. Methods. Phys. Res. B 267, 2827 (2009).

Jesse Carter, E.G. Fu, M. Martin, G.O. Xie, X. Zhang, Y.Q. Wang, D. Wijesundera, X.M. Wang, Wei-Kan Chu, and L. Shao, “Effects of Cu Ion Irradiation in Cu50Zr45Ti5 Metallic Glass”, Scripta Materialia 61, 265 (2009).

Pavel V. TsetkovAssistant ProfessorPh.D., Texas A&M [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• High-fidelity integrated systematics for nuclear engineering applications• Symbiotic nuclear energy ap-proaches including zero-waste, co-generation• Direct nuclear energy conversion systems, all of which are assumed

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to be potentially fueled with higher actinides.

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Deep-Burn” Gas-Reactor Technol-ogy Research and Development: Development of Optimization and Shuffling Methodology for the Prismatic High Temperature Reactor Deep Burn Reactor, (Battelle Energy Alliance/Idaho National Laboratory)Department of Energy, 2009-2010, Principal Investigator

“Advanced Elastic/Inelastic Nuclear Data Development Project,” Depart-ment of Energy University Program lead by the University of Michigan, 2009-2012, Principal Investigator

“Basic Physics Data: Improved Fis-sion Neutron Data Base For Active Interrogation of Actinides,” Depart-ment of Energy University Program/(Idaho National Laboratory), 2009-2012, Principal Investigator.

“Design of a New ORNL HFIR Target,” Oak Ridge National Labora-tory, 2008-2009, Principal Investiga-tor.

“Distributed Fiber Optic Sensor Network for Online 3D Temperature and Neutron Fluence Mapping in a Very High Temperature Reactor En-vironment,” Department of Energy Nuclear Energy University Programs 2009-2012, Co-Principal Investigator

“Fuel Performance Experiments and Modeling: Fission Gas Bubble Nucleation and Growth in Alloy Nuclear Fuels,” Battelle Energy Alliance/Idaho National Laboratory, 2009-2012, Co-Principal Investigator

“Basic Research on High Tempera-ture Gas Reactor Thermal Hydraulics and Reactor Physics,” Oregon State University, 2008-2013, Co-Principal Investigator

“Effects of Environmental Changes due to Climate Fluctuations on Long-Term Nuclear Power Plant Operations and New Plant Plan-ning,” Entergy Nuclear, 2009-2012, Co-Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesNuclear Power, P. V. Tsvetkov (book editor), Sciyo (2010). P. V. Tsvetkov, T. L. Guy, “Advanced Magnetic-Nuclear Power Systems

for Reliability Demanding Applica-tions Including Deep Space Mis-sions,” Chapter in Nuclear Power, P.V. Tsvetkov (book editor), Sciyo (2010).

P. V. Tsvetkov, T. G. Lewis III, A. B. Alajo, D. E. Ames II, “Used Fuel” Vectors and Waste Minimization Strategies for VHTRs Operating without Refueling,” Nucl. Eng. Des., 240 (2010), pp. 2458-2465, Elsevier (2010). P. V. Tsvetkov, T. G. Lewis III, A. B. Alajo, D. E. Ames II, “VHTR-Based Systems for Autonomous Co-Gener-ation Applications,” Nucl. Eng. Des., 240 (2010), pp. 2451-2457, Elsevier (2010).

A. B. Alajo, P. V. Tsvetkov, “Impact of PWR Spent Fuel Variations on Back-End Features of Advanced Fuel Cycles with TRU-fueled VHTRs,” Annals of Nuclear Energy, Elsevier (2010). D. E. Ames, II, P. V. Tsvetkov, “High Fidelity System Modeling of Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems Approaching a Zero-Nuclear-Waste Limit,” Progr. In Nucl. Energy, Else-vier (2010). P. V. Tsvetkov, A. B. Alajo, D. E. Ames II, “Autonomous Control Strategies for VHTR-Based Systems for Hydrogen Production,” J. Eng. for Gas Turbines and Power, Sep-tember 2009, 131, 052906, pp. 1-6, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (2009). P. V. Tsvetkov, T. G. Lewis III, A. B. Alajo, “TRU-Fueled VHTRs for Applications Requiring an Extended Operation with Minimized Control and No Refueling,” J. Eng. for Gas Turbines and Power, September 2009, 131, 052907, pp. 1-4, Ameri-can Society of Mechanical Engineers (2009). T. G. Lewis III, P. V. Tsvetkov, “Physics Features of TRU-Fueled VHTRs,” Science and Technology of Nuclear Installa-tions, 2009, ID 214285, pp. 1-7, doi:10.1155/2009/214285, Hindawi (2009). Conference ProceedingsR. P. Kelly, M. L. Pritchard, P. V. Tsvetkov, “Pebble-Bed System Fea-tures and Fuel Utilization,” Trans. Amer. Nucl. Soc., 102, pp. 579-580,

USA (2010).

P. V. Tsvetkov, T. G. Lewis III, S. K. Lakshmipathy, A. M. Ougouag, F. Venneri, “3D Tracking in Reloading Optimization for Deep Burn HTR Hexagonal Block Systems,” Proc. 5th Intern. Conf. on HTR Technol-ogy (HTR 2010), October 18–20, 2010, Prague, Czech Republic, paper HTR2010-110, accepted, ASME (2010). A. B. Alajo, P. V. Tsvetkov, “Uti-lization of Transuranics as Fuel Component in VHTR Systems: The Back-End Considerations,” Proc. ANS Topical Meeting/Intern. Conf. on Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycles and Systems Global 2009, Paris, France, September 6-11, 2009, Paper 9471, pp 1886-1893 (2009). P. V. Tsvetkov, T. L. Guy, “Archi-tectures Based on Direct Fission Fragment Energy Conversion for Interstellar Exploration,” Proc. Nucl. and Emerging Techn. for Space 2009, ANS Annual Meeting Embed-ded Topical, Atlanta, GA, June 14-19, 2009, Paper 203610, pp. 320-329 (2009). D. E. Ames II, P. V. Tsvetkov, “Nuclear Energy System Providing an Environmentally Benign, Sustain-able, and Secure Energy Source,” Trans. Amer. Nucl. Soc., 101, pp. 177 - 178, USA (2009). P. V. Tsvetkov, T. G. Lewis III, A. M. Ougouag, F. Venneri, “Refer-ence Basic Cases and Anticipated Performance of DB-VHTRs in a Single-Path OTTO Mode,” Trans. Amer. Nucl. Soc., 101, pp. 248 - 250, USA (2009).

Karen VierowAssociate ProfessorPh.D., University of [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Thermal hydraulic

• Multiphase flow, particularly con-densation heat transfer• Reactor safety• Severe accident analysis• Reactor design

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Analysis of Advanced Fuel As-semblies and Core Designs for the Current and Next Generation of LWRs,” U.S. Department of Energy – Nuclear Engineering Research Ini-tiative Program (NERI), 2007-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Effects of Environmental Changes Due to Climate Fluctuations on Long-term Nuclear Power Plant Op-erations and New Plant Planning,” Entergy, 2008-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Collaborative Research: ARI-MA: Tensioned Fluid Metastable State Special Nuclear Material Detector,” National Science Foundation (NSF)/Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2008-2009, Principal Investigator

“Basic Research on High Tempera-ture Gas Reactor Thermal Hydraulics and Reactor Physics,” Oregon State University/Nuclear Regulatory Com-mission, 2008-2013, Co-Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesI. Choutapalli, K. Vierow, “Wall Pressure Measurements of Flooding in Vertical Countercurrent Annular Air-Water Flow,” Nuclear Engineer-ing and Design, Vol. 240, pp.3321-3230, (accepted June 2010).

I. Choutapalli, K. Vierow, “Effect of Air Inlet Geometry on Flooding in a Large Diameter Vertical Tube,” Nuclear Engineering and Design, Vol. 240, pp.3667-3681, (accepted July 2010).

Y. Liao, S. Guentay, K. Vierow, “Local Nonsimilarity Method for the Two-Phase Boundary Layer in Mixed Convection Laminar Film Condensation,” Heat and Mass Transfer,” Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 447-455, (2010).

Deendarlianto, A. Ousaka, Indarto, A. Kariyasaki, D. Lucas, K. Vierow, C. Vallee, K. Hogan, “The Effects of Surface Tension on Flooding in Counter-current Two-phase Flow in an Inclined Tube,” Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, Vol. 34,

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Issue 7, pp. 813-826, (2010).K. Hogan, Y. Liao, B. Beeny, K. Vierow, R. Cole, Jr., L. Humphries, R. Gauntt, “Implementation of a Generalized Diffusion Layer Model for Condensation into MELCOR,” Nuclear Engineering and Design, Vol. 240, pp. 3202-3208, (accepted September 2009).

Conference ProceedingsO. Draznin, S. N. Ritchey, K. Vierow, “Experimental Study of Water Subcooling Effect on Steam-Water Flooding in a Large-Diameter Vertical Tube,” Proc. of International Congress on Advanced Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP’02), San Diego, CA, Feb. 2010.

K. Metzroth, T. Aldemir, K. Hogan, and K. Vierow, “Sensitivity Analy-sis Using the Method of Taguchi Orthogonal Arrays,” Transactions of 2009 ANS Winter Meeting Washing-ton, D.C., Nov. 2009.

S. N. Williams, M. Solom, O. Draznin, I. Choutapalli, K. Vierow, “Flooding Experiments with Steam and Water in a Large Diameter Verti-cal Tube,” 13th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-13), Japan, Oct. 2009.

S. N. Williams, M. Solom, O. Draznin, I. Choutapalli, and K. Vierow, “Flooding Experiments with Steam and Water in a Large Diameter Vertical Tube,” Proc. of 13th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydrau-lics (NURETH-13) Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, paper N13P1094, Oct. 2009.

Visiting Professors

Sunil ChirayathVisiting Assistant ProfessorTEES Research ScientistPh.D., University of Madras, [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Fast Breeder Fuel Cycle• Nuclear Material Safeguards • Proliferation Resistance Assess-ments• Monte Carlo Radiation Transport• Radiation Shielding• Reactor Core Physics

SPONSORED RESEARCH“A Framework for Developing Novel Detection Systems Focused on In-terdicting Shielded HEU,” Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, U.S. Department of Homeland Security under the Academic Research Initia-tive Grants, 2007-2012, Co-Principal Investigator

“Creation of a Graduate-level Aca-demic Program in Nuclear Materials Management at an Indian Institu-tion of Higher Education,” Sandia National Laboratories, 2010-2012, Co-Principal Investigator

“Safeguards Approaches for Fast Breeder Reactors and Associated Fuel Facilities,” U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, 2007-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesG.M. Gaukler, C. Li, R. Cannaday, S.S. Chirayath, Y. Ding, “Detecting Nuclear Materials Smuggling: using Radiography to improve Container Inspection Policies,” Annals of Operation Research online (March 2010).

S.S. Chirayath, G. Hollenbeck, J. Ra-gusa, and P. Nelson, “Neutronic and nonproliferation characteristics of

(PuO2-UO2) and (PuO2-ThO2) as fast reactor fuels,” Nuclear Engineering and Design 239, 1916-1924 (2009).

L. Thilagam, V. Jagannathan, S.S. Chirayath and K.V. Subbaiah, “VVER-1000 MOX Core Compu-tational Benchmark analysis using indigenous codes EXCEL, TRIHEX-FA and HEXPIN,” Annals of Nuclear Energy 36, 1502-1515, (2009).

L. Thilagam, S.S. Chirayath, V. Jagannathan, K.V. Subbaiah, “A VVER-1000 LEU and MOX As-sembly Computational Benchmark Analysis using the Lattice Burn-up code EXCEL,” Annals of Nuclear Energy 36, 505-519, (2009).

Conference ProceedingsS.S. Chirayath, W. Charlton, A. Staf-ford, C. Myers, B. Goddard, J. Al-fred, M. Carroll, M. Sternat, and E. Rauch, “Risk Informed Safeguards Integration Studies for a Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle,” Proceedings of the 51st Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials and Management Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

SS. Chirayath, J. Ragusa, and P. Nel-son, “Thorium blended and regular MOX burn-up studies for fast reactor fuel cycle safeguards,” Proceedings of 50th annual meeting of INMM, Tucson, AZ, July 12-16, 2009.

A. Bingham, B. Bradley, Y. Zhang, J. Ragusa, S.S. Chirayath, and K. Vierow, “Analysis of Advanced Fuel Assemblies for the LWRs,” Proceed-ings of the ANS Annual Meeting Atlanta, GA, June 14-18, 2009.

Craig MariannoVisiting Assistant ProfessorPh.D., Oregon State [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Nuclear counter terrorism• Nuclear instrumentation develop-ment• Exercise development

• Radiological consequence manage-ment• Environmental health physics

SPONSORED RESEARCH“ARI-LA: A Framework for De-veloping Novel Detection Systems Focused on Interdicting Shielded HEU,” U.S. Department of Home-land Security, 2008-2010, Co-Princi-pal Investigator

“GTRI Nuclear Security Education Initiative Design,” Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 2010, Co-Prin-cipal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSConference ProceedingsC.M. Marianno, D.R. Boyle, W.S. Charlton, and G.M. Gaukler, “A Guide for Detector Development and Deployment,” Proceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

C. Ryan, C. Marianno, W. Charlton, A. Solodov, and J. Livesay, “Deter-mining the Effects of Construction Materials on Background Readings for Second Line of Defense Program Portal Monitoring Systems,” Pro-ceedings of the 2010 Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

C.M. Marianno, “Conveying Uncer-tainty in Map Products for Radio-logical Events,” 54th Annual Meeting of the Health Physics Society, July 2009.

J. Essex , Marianno C., Ainsworth P., Davison B., Istle J., and Hassen J., “A Solution for Real-Time Data Acquisition, Analysis, and Dis-semination in Support of Nuclear Emergency Response,” 42nd Annual Mid-year Meeting of the Health Physics Society, January, 2009.

C.M. Marianno, “Locating Illicit Ra-dioactive Material: Instrumentation Design Considerations,” 42nd Annual Mid-year Meeting of the Health Physics Society, January, 2009.

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Ryan McClarrenVisiting Assistant ProfessorPh.D., University of [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Uncertainty quantification for mul-tiphysics systems• Computational radiation transport• Radiating shock physics• Verification and validation of com-puter models

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Center for Radiative Shock Hydro-dynamics,” Department of Energy, 2008-2012

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesR.G. McClarren, R.P. Drake, J.E. Morel, and J.P. Holloway, “Theory of Radiative Shocks in the Mixed, Optically Thick-Thin Case,” Physics of Plasmas, 17, 093301, (2010).

R.G. McClarren and J.G. Wohlbier, “Analytic Solutions for Ion-Electron-Radiation Coupling With Radiation and Electron Diffusion,” Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, 112, 119-130, (2010).

R.G. McClarren and R.P. Drake, “Anti-diffusive radiation flow in the cooling layer of a radiating shock”, Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, 111 2095-2105, (2010).

R.G. McClarren and C.D. Hauck, “Robust and Accurate Filtered Spherical Harmonics Expansions for Radiative Transfer,” Journal of Computational Physics, 229, 16, 5597-5614, (2010).

R.G. McClarren and C.D. Hauck, “Simulating Radiative Transfer with Filtered Spherical Harmonics,” Phys-ics Letters A, 374, 22, 2290-2296, (2010). R.G. McClarren and T.J. Urbatsch, “A Modified Implicit Monte Carlo Method for Time-Dependent Radia-

tive Transfer With Adaptive Material Coupling,” Journal of Computational Physics, 228, 16, 5669-5686, (2009).

G. Thoreson, R.G. McClarren, and J.H. Chang, “High Resolution Time Integration for Sn Radiation Trans-port,” Annals of Nuclear Energy, 36, 263-267, (2009), Invited.

Conference ProceedingsR.G. McClarren and C.D. Hauck, “Positive Pn Closures,” Transactions of the American Nuclear Society. Winter 2009.

Lecturers

Leslie BrabySenior LecturerResearch EngineerPh.D., Oregon State [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Radiation dosimetry• Microdosimetry• Biological effects of radiation• Microbeam Lab• Food irradiation

SPONSORED RESEARCH“Development of Replacement Tissue Equivalent Proportional Detectors,” Jacobs ESC (NASA), 2008-2010, Principal Investigator

“Small Active Dosimetry Systems for Lunar EVA,” National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NASA), 2007-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

“Microbeam Irradiations of C. el-legans,” Loma Linda Medical Center (NASA), 2008-2010, Co-Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesBraby, L.A., and Perez-Nunez, D., “Effect of Wall Thickness on Mea-surement of Dose for High Energy Neutrons,” Health Physics 98, 37-41, (2010).

Braby, L.A., and Perez-Nunez, D., “Design, Construction, and Imple-mentation of Spherical Tissue-Equiv-alent Proportional Counter,” Nuclear Technology 168, 21-28, (2009).

Cable KurwitzLecturerPh.D., Texas A&M [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Spacecraft systems• Reduced gravity thermal manage-ment• Modeling of high dimensional data• Data classification• Model validation

SPONSORED RESEARCH“FY09 Earmark Entitled ‘Space Engineering Institute,” NASA Shared Services Center, 2009-2011, Co-Principal Investigator

“A Highly Stabic Two Phase Ther-mal Management System - Phase II,” Creare, 2010-2011, Co-Principal Investigator

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesR. Oinuma, F. Best, and R. Kurwitz, “Development and Application of Vortex Liquid / Gas Phase Separator for Reduced Gravity Environment,” JASMA – Japan Society of Micro-gravity Application, Vol 26, No. 3, 2009, pp 226.

Conference ProceedingsC. Schwendeman, R. Hay, and C. Kurwitz, “Optimization of Various Thermal Management Techniques for High Thermal Loads,” SSC10-VII-4 2010 Small Satellite Confer-ence, Logan, UT, August 9-12, 2010.

M. Schuller, C. Kurwitz, F. Little, R. Oinuma, B. Larsen, J. Goldman, F. Reinis, “Custom Unit Pump Devel-opment for the Extravehicular Activ-ity Portable Life Support System,” Proc. 40th International Conference on Environmental Systems, AIAA, Barcelona, Spain, July 11-15, 2010.

L. Gaul, C. Kurwitz, and F. Best, “Equilibrium Interface Position Dur-ing Operation of a Fixed Cylinder Vortex Separator,” Proceedings of

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the Space, Propulsion & Energy Sci-ences International Forum, Applied Physics Laboratory – JHU, February 23-26, 2010.

A. Creary, M. King, M. Langston, C. Kurwitz, P. Nelson, and F. Yilmaz, “Time Domain Analysis of the Tem-peratures in an Electrical Auxiliary Building Room,” ICONE17-75720, Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering ICONE17, Brussels, Belgium, 2009.

Natela OstrovskayaSenior LecturerPh.D., Texas A&M [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Mathematical and computer model-ing of radiation response of human tissues• Predicting changes occurring in tis-sues following radiation insult

Alexander SolodovLecturerPh.D., Texas A&M [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Nondestructive assay of nuclear materials• Health Physics instrumentation• Nuclear nonproliferation and inter-national security

RECENT PUBLICATIONSJournal ArticlesB.R. McGinnis, A.A. Solodov, J.L. Shipwash, A.V. Zhernosek, T. McK-

inney, C. Pickett, and P. Peerani, “International Workshop on Gamma Spectrometry Analysis Codes for U and Pu Isotopics: Workshop Results and Next Steps,” ESARDA BULLE-TIN, No. 43, pp. 65-68, (December 2009).

N.M. Abdul-Jabbar, A.A. Solodov, J.P. Hayward, K.P. Ziock, and A.C. Raffo-Caiado, “Measurements with Pinhole and Coded Aperture Gam-ma-Ray Imaging Systems,” ORNL/TM-2009/76, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (2009).

Conference ProceedingsA.A. Solodov, W.S. Charlton, S.F. Saavedra, and L. Khodalev, “The Use of Self-induced XRF to Quan-tify the Pu Content in MOX Spent Nuclear Fuel,” presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

S.M. Revis, A.A. Solodov, J. Live-say, and J.M. Crye, “Determination and Mitigation of Weather Effects on Portal Monitor Gamma Background Levels,” presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

C. Ryan, G. Marianno, W.S. Charl-ton, A.A. Solodov, and J. Livesay, “Determining the Effects of Con-struction Materials on Background Readings for Second Line of Defense Program Portal Monitoring Sys-tems”, presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

S.F. Saavedra, W.S. Charlton, A.A. Solodov, and M. Ehinger, “Using NDA Techniques to Improve Safe-guards Metrics on Burnup Quanti-fication and Plutonium Content in LWR SNF,” presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

J. Chapman, M. Rasweswe, C. Behan, B. Rollen, S. Smith, A. Lous-teau, and A. A. Solodov, “Pelindaba Nondestructive Assay Program for the Measurement and Declaration of Material to the International Atomic Energy Agency,” presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

J. White, W.S. Charlton, and A.A. Solodov, “Applications of X-Ray Fluorescence Fission Product Cor-relations for Nuclear Forensics,” presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Baltimore, MD, July 11-15, 2010.

Galina V. TsvetkovaLecturerPh.D., Texas A&M [email protected]

RESEARCH INTERESTS• Reactor physics, small nuclear power and co-generation applications• Nuclear data management systems• Isotope separation• Molecular dynamics and separa-tions phenomena

Emeritus FacultyRon HartProfessor EmeritusPh.D., University of California, Berkeley

Milton E. McLainProfessor EmeritusPh.D., Georgia Institute of Technology

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Ms. Carol BerriganSenior director industry infrastructurenuclear Energy instituteWashington, dC

Mr. William “russ” BrianVice Presidentoperations SupportEntergy nuclearJackson, MS

Mr. rafael floresSenior VP and Chief nuclear officerLuminant PowerGlen rose, tX

Mr. thomas Geer, ChairVice President of nuclear EngineeringWestinghouse Electric Company

Mr. John GutteridgeProgram officerU.S. nuclear regulatory CommissionWashington, dC

Advisory Councilthe nuclear Engineering advisory Council (nEaC) is fundamental to forging the partnership between the academic com-munity and the practicing profession, and in supporting the department to provide the highest quality nuclear engineer-ing education. the Council is critical in helping the department aspire to become the pre-eminent educational program for this discipline in the world.

MISSIONthe mission is to assist and advise the department in meeting the following objectives:• Advise the Department in the development and delivery of cutting edge, relevant curriculum.• Advise and consult on issues of mutual concern related to the educational, research, and professional service program.• Review and evaluate Departmental strategic goals and plans and, as mutually agreed, specific programs and new initia-tives.• Assist in establishing and maintaining recognition of the Department.• Support the Department in fostering mutually beneficial relationships with the nuclear industry, the engineering and scientific communities, state and federal governments, and present and former students.• Assist in resource development in support of the needs and programs of the Department.

MEMBERSHIPthe membership on the Council is by invitation of the department Head of nuclear Engineering. Members are selected based on their leadership, accomplishments, or exceptional ability to contribute to one or more of the Council’s objectives. Prospective members may be nominated by any member of the Council, by members of the department’s faculty or staff, or by the leadership of the College of Engineering. Council membership is personal, not corporate, i.e., council members may not send “representatives” to Council functions. Members serve without remuneration or reimbursement.

TERM OF SERVICEthe Council will consist of 15 to 25 members who serve three-year terms. active members serve three-year terms and may be reappointed for additional terms. Staggered terms will be utilized to provide continuity. Upon completion of one or more active terms, members may be honored with “Emeritus” status, whereby they will receive most nEaC communica-tions but will not participate in regular meetings of the Council.

dr. david Hilldeputy Laboratory director for Science and technologyidaho national Laboratoryidaho falls, id

Mr. timothy HurstPresidentHurst technologies Corporationangleton, tX

dr. Jeff KleckCo-founder and CEoattania, inc.San Jose, Ca

Mr. Craig Lambertdirector of Engineering designExelon Generation CompanyWarrenville, iL

dr. regis MatzieSenior V.P. and Chief technology officerWestinghouse Windsor, Ct

dr. david McCallendeputy Principal associate directornational Security Global Security directorateLawrence Livermore national Laboratory

Ms. Evelyn Mullendivision Leaderinternational and applied technology Los alamos national LaboratoryLos alamos, nM

dr. James Peerydirector of Computation Computersinformation and MathematicsSandia national Laboratoryalbuquerque, nM

Mr. tim PowellVice President of EngineeringSouth texas Project nuclear EngineeringWadsworth, tX

Ms. Sandra Sloanregulatory affairs Managernew Plantsareva nP, inc. Lynchburg, Va

dr. russell StachowskiChief Consulting EngineerGlobal nuclear fuelWilmington, nC

Mr. ron Stinson, EmeritusPresident and CEoatlas Consulting GroupCarlsbad, Ca

dr. John UlloSenior advisorSchlumberger researchCambridge, Ma

Mr. richard Woltersretired, General ElectricSan Jose, Ca

2009-2010 Members

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Former Student Profile - Ray A. Rothrock ‘77His Journey with Nuclear Energy Comes Full Circle

Often times our life’s journey comes “full circle” by returning back to where we started. When Ray Rothrock ’77 earned his B.S. in Nuclear Engineering, he

set his sights on a career in the nuclear energy industry, and now years later, after several turns along the way, the nuclear energy industry is again in his sights.

Rothrock began his career as a nuclear safety analysis engineer. In this position, he earned a greater appreciation for the skill set he had acquired as an undergraduate. He realized the nuclear engineering program’s broad-based curriculum had not only prepared him well for the nuclear industry, but the exposure to other disciplines gave him an edge over his counterparts.

“Because of the breadth and depth of the nuclear engineering program at A&M, I found that I was capable of being instantly productive at my first job out of college,” said Rothrock.

He continued working in the nuclear industry and earned his master’s degree in nuclear engineering from M.I.T., but his journey took a turn when Exxon Minerals left the uranium business. Inspired by a National Geographic cover story, Rothrock decided to sell everything and make the move to the Silicon Valley in California. After two failed software startups, he answered an ad for an applications engineer for Sun Microsystems.

As Rothrock puts it, Sun Microsystems was a “rocketship,” a newly started and fast growing company. Here, Rothrock learned about venture capital – an industry that provides financial capital and sponsorship to early-stage, high-potential growth startup companies. This knowledge, along with prodding from his then boss and now CEO of Yahoo, Carol Bartz; Wayne Stark of the Memorial Student Center; and his soon to be wife, Meredith, Rothrock added MBA to his list of degrees. He obtained his MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School in 1988.

“I went to Harvard with venture capital in mind,” Rothrock said. “Knowing that I would pursue this upon completion of the program.”

A recruiter for Venrock Associates contacted Rothrock while he was contemplating his next move. He joined Venrock in New York City and led the company into the Internet age in the early 90’s; he has enjoyed a stellar career investment record: 94% internal rate of return. His current investments are mostly in the fields of computer network security and energy.

“It is not about scientists or engineers solving the problem. Everyone - scientists, engineers and especially non-technical people - must care and get involved in order to come up with solu-tions and make it happen.”

Ray A. Rothrock ‘77 has made numerous contributions to texas a&M University. He has served on the Board of trustees for the texas a&M foundation, chairing the investment committee and as co-chair of the arts & Science theme Group for the univer-sity’s “Vision 2020.”

additionally, he has made significant contribu-tions to a&M’s student affairs, College of Lib-eral arts and 12th Man foundation. rothrock’s support has contributed to multiple endowed scholarships to the department of nuclear Engi-neering.

Not only is Rothrock investing in energy, but he also has ideas about what our country should be doing to address current global concerns. He believes nuclear energy is part of the solution. His presentation “American Energy Transition: From Carbon-based to Sustainable Sources,” is designed to raise awareness, start conversations and inspire action. Rothrock has made the presentation at various events and to multiple organizations including alumni clubs, Muster 2010, IEEE of Santa Clara County, Middlebury College, venture capital events and even a staff member at the White House - which lead to an audience with Vice President Joseph Biden.

“It is not only about scientists and engineers solving the problem,” Rothrock said. “Everyone - scientists, engineers and especially non-technical people - must care and get involved in order to come up with solutions and make it happen. There are 150 other people for every engineer in America. That’s leverage.”

Are You a Former “Aggie Nuke”? We would like to hear what your journey has been since graduation, both personally and professionally. News items will be reported in upcoming editions of the department’s newsletter. Contact us at [email protected].

Scholarships drive the spirit and guide the minds of generations of Aggies, so they can affect the world in productive and inventive ways. When you fund a

scholarship, you’re making a profound difference for individual students and for the lives those students touch as graduates of Texas A&M University.

For more information about contributing to scholarships in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, contact

Andy Acker, Director of Development - Engineering( 979) 845-5113

[email protected]

Givea Gift

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department of nuclear EngineeringZachry Engineering Center

3133 taMUCollege Station, tX 77843-3133

nuclear.tamu.edu

Documents

2010 Annual Report