Education


UC–Irvine student section does STEM outreach for young women

June 12, 2024, 7:00AMANS News
A student observes the ANS Visualizing Radiation Cloud Chamber at the PPPL Young Women’s Conference. (Photo: ANS Student Section/University of California–Irvine)

The American Nuclear Society Student Section at University of California–Irvine presented ANS STEM learning materials at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Young Women’s Conference in STEM. Members of the section were on hand at the May 17 conference, held at University of California–San Diego, with Geiger counters, an ANS Visualizing Radiation Cloud Chamber Kit, pellet cards, and more, courtesy of ANS STEM Programs.

Ukrainian grad students participate in DOE program

June 4, 2024, 9:30AMANS Nuclear Cafe
A screenshot from a DOE video showing the eight Ukrainian students from the department’s internship program at Argonne National Laboratory, along with one of their tour guides (second from left). (Image: DOE)

Eight graduate students from Ukrainian universities have completed a two-year Department of Energy internship program that included a visit to Argonne National Laboratory.

ANS presents Future City nuclear science award

May 23, 2024, 9:30AMANS News

Each year, more than 60,000 middle schoolers throughout the country participate in DiscoverE’s Future City Competition, which asks students to tackle pressing real-world issues through the lens of urban design and engineering. At this year’s Future City Finals Awards Ceremony in Washington, D.C., on February 20, the American Nuclear Society presented the award for Best Use of Nuclear Science.

UT–Knoxville, Roane State to receive expanded nuclear education funding

May 23, 2024, 7:00AMNuclear News
The Zeanah Engineering Complex at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville. (Photo: UT–Knoxville)

Last week Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and Stuart McWhorter, commissioner of the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development, announced that the University of Tennessee–Knoxville and Roane State Community College will receive funding from Tennessee’s Nuclear Energy Fund to support existing nuclear programs as well as develop and implement new nuclear education curriculum.

Using its portion of the $50 million Nuclear Energy Fund, the University of Tennessee will establish a new program for non-nuclear engineers to obtain a minor in nuclear engineering at its Knoxville campus. Separate funding for Roane State Community College will allow purchase of laboratory equipment for that school’s inaugural nuclear technology program, which launches in the fall of 2024.

A better search: Improving public access to the NRC’s ADAMS document database

May 22, 2024, 3:00PMNuclear News

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission hosted a public meeting yesterday to gather comments on its web-based ADAMS (WBA) system—a public document search tool introduced in 2010. It’s a tool that novice users find daunting and frequent users find frustrating, whether they’re searching for a single document or for thousands of documents on a single topic.

ORISE report focuses on nuclear engineering degrees and enrollments

May 20, 2024, 3:04PMNuclear News

There is a mix of good news and bad in the latest Nuclear Engineering Enrollment and Degrees Survey, 2021–2022 Data. According to this report from the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), compiled with data initially released in November 2023 and updated in February 2024, the number of doctoral degrees awarded in nuclear engineering at the end of the 2022 academic year in the United States—211 Ph.D.s—was the highest since the beginning of this survey’s data collection in 1966. However, the overall numbers of nuclear engineering degrees awarded in 2021 and 2022 were at their lowest levels in more than a decade. In addition, both undergraduate and graduate enrollment numbers were down compared with 2018 and 2019.

Net-zero initiative launches online fusion forum

May 15, 2024, 7:05AMANS Nuclear Cafe
Ana Kova’s illustration of different types of fusion. (Image: Ana Kova/Global Fusion Forum)

The University of Michigan’s Fastest Path to Zero Initiative has launched the Global Fusion Forum, an online platform focused on fusion energy. It was created to foster international engagement and collaboration in the area of fusion technology.

ORAU, ANS, others to host workshops on nuclear academic programs

May 7, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News

Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), in partnership with the American Nuclear Society, the Nuclear Energy Institute, and the Institute for Nuclear Power Operators, has announced it will host an online workshop called “Shaping the Future of Nuclear Academic Programs.” The 90-minute program is designed for university department heads and faculty interested in enhancing nuclear science and technology programs through best practices.

Excelsior University student section awarded community education grant

May 1, 2024, 4:52PMNuclear News

The American Nuclear Society student section at Excelsior University in Albany, N.Y., was awarded a $5,000 grant from the ANS Student Section Strategic Fund initiative for its program Empowering Tomorrow’s Nuclear Innovators: A Collaborative Approach to Nuclear Technology Education and Awareness.

Giving back: Helping disadvantaged high school students discover nuclear engineering

April 9, 2024, 7:01AMNuclear News

Charles Harper (seated) with son Jeff (right) and grandson Phillip (left). (Photo: Otis Waters)

Charles L. Harper understands disadvantage. It was his personal drive and love for learning that pushed him to leave inner-city Detroit, join the U.S. Navy, earn degrees in psychology from Wayne State University and the University of Detroit, and enjoy a successful career as a clinical psychologist. He served as a strong role model for his son Jeffrey, who is an entrepreneur and international energy executive.

The Harper men have many things in common. According to Jeffrey, “Both my dad and I share a common self-motivation and a love for learning, but the most critical thing we share is the continual quest for opportunity, which led us both to moments of predestination that changed our lives.” And now, in honor of his father, the younger Harper has used these qualities to found Charles Harper Charities (CHC) with the aim of introducing disadvantaged youth to the world of nuclear engineering.

One CHC offering helps rising high school seniors attend a summer program to prepare them for college and introduce them to nuclear engineering. This summer’s Nuclear Engineering Opportunity Program, which will be CHC’s inaugural course, will be held at the University of Michigan in conjunction with the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) and the College of Engineering’s Office of Culture, Community, and Equity. The monthlong residential course will host rising seniors from Detroit at no cost to them and will introduce them to STEM subjects and provide tours of nearby nuclear facilities.

SRMC funds STEM scholarships for Voorhees University

April 5, 2024, 12:01PMRadwaste Solutions
SRMC’s Dave Olson (left) presents a $10,000 check to Voorhees University president Ronnie Hopkins. (Photo: SRMS)

Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC), the liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, recently presented a $10,000 check to Voorhees University to fund science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) scholarships.

UC–Berkeley, New Mexico State among universities awarded DOE grants

March 27, 2024, 7:01AMNuclear News

The University of California–Berkeley and New Mexico State University have each received financial assistance grants for radioactive waste management projects as part of the Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program (MSIPP), an initiative of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. A total of seven minority serving institutions (MSIs) are to be awarded an estimated total of $24,761,831 in MSIPP grants for the three-year period from April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2027.

Radiation workshop and reactor tour a big draw for educators

March 15, 2024, 12:00PMANS News

The American Nuclear Society has hosted workshops for teachers for years, but the latest Educator Workshop and Research Reactor Tour, which took place in November at the 2023 Winter Conference and Expo, was especially successful. ANS partnered with the University of Maryland for the event, which was part of the Society’s Powering Our Future initiative, sponsored by the Department of Energy.

Prepare for the 2024 PE Exam with ANS guides

March 7, 2024, 3:00PMANS News

The next opportunity to earn professional engineer (P.E.) licensure in nuclear engineering is this fall. Now is the time to sign up and begin studying with the help of materials like the online module program offered by the American Nuclear Society.

NEDHO diversity panels inspire and raise awareness

March 5, 2024, 7:03AMNuclear News

The NEDHO Diversity Panel featured, from left, University of Michigan professor John Foster; Jeffrey Harper, then a vice president at X-energy; William D. Magwood, director general of the NEA; and Londrea Garrett, a Ph.D. student at UM. (Photo: Aditi Verma/University of Michigan)

The Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization (NEDHO) has been sponsoring Diversity Panels since October 2022, when the inaugural meeting was hosted by the University of Tennessee Department of Nuclear Engineering. The panels were established as a distinguished speaker series by a working group led by Wes Hines, head of the UT Department of Nuclear Engineering, and Todd Allen, a former NEDHO chair and the current chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) at the University of Michigan.

Allen explained that the panels are meant to be “a first step toward improving the diversity of the talent entering the nuclear science and engineering fields.” The idea came from a presentation by Andreas Enqvist, director of the nuclear engineering program at the University of Florida, at the November 2021 NEDHO meeting. According to Allen, Enqvist described “ASEE [American Society for Engineering Education] data on how poorly the nuclear engineering field was doing at getting black students to study nuclear at the B.S. level and, even worse, how few moved from B.S. to graduate programs.”