Education

North Carolina State University is hosting the inaugural Future Leaders in Nuclear: Undergraduate Symposium in early October at its campus in Raleigh. The event for rising juniors and seniors in nuclear engineering or related science and engineering fields will give attendees the opportunity to present their research.

The first Harper Academy 4 Future Nuclear Engineers was held recently at the University of Michigan. The four-week program provided eight rising high school seniors with classes in nuclear engineering fundamentals, mathematics, technical skills, design, community engagement, and college preparation. While taking the course, the students stayed at Bursley Hall on the university’s Ann Arbor campus.

The American Nuclear Society is excited to announce the launch of its inaugural Nuclear 101 certificate course, scheduled to take place in-person at the 2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo this November. This comprehensive five-day program is designed to provide participants with a robust understanding of nuclear energy and engineering, delivered by some of the field's foremost experts.

Fifty-five high schoolers representing 14 Asian countries participated in an inaugural nuclear science competition earlier this month in the Philippines.

The event was held in the run-up to the United Nations’ International Youth Day, which is celebrated worldwide on August 12 to recognize and encourage the potential of young people as active partners in the global society. The nuclear field presents many opportunities for the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Constellation is taking applications for its 2024 E² Energy to Educate grant program, which provides funding for student projects focusing on energy innovation.

Educators and students in grades 6–12 can apply for program grants of up to $25,000, and those in two- and four-year colleges can apply for grants of up to $50,000.

Imagine a place where children and adults can learn together about nuclear science as a carbon-free energy source that can be an answer to climate change. Guests can experience a cloud chamber, remotely inspect equipment with a drone, and hold a simulated low-enriched uranium fuel pellet. On Saturday, July 6, such a place actually existed for three hours. That place was the Discovery Place Science Museum in Charlotte, N.C. Ryan Leung, a Discovery Place experience specialist, led a team of local nuclear energy industry volunteers and representatives from the American Nuclear Society and Women in Nuclear to organize and execute an Energy Summit.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has announced the opening of this year’s application process for its Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Program (MSCFP), which is designed to “inspire and encourage young women to pursue a career in the nuclear field, by providing highly motivated female students with scholarships for master’s programs and an opportunity to pursue an internship facilitated by the IAEA,” according to the program description.

Jenifer Shafer, the associate director for technology at the Advanced Research Projects Agency­–Energy (ARPA-E), recently delivered a TEDx talk in which she explained the basic concepts of nuclear waste recycling, including related nonproliferation issues. As Shafer wrote in a post on LinkedIn, “In my talk, I explored the misconceptions surrounding nuclear waste and discuss[ed] the possible emerging opportunities regarding nuclear fuel recycling. It’s crucial that we understand the real potential of nuclear energy, and leveraging our ‘nuclear treasure,’ in shaping a sustainable future.”

Robert Roche-Rivera and Marcos Rolón-Acevedo are licensed professional engineers who work at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. They are also alumni of the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez (UPRM) and have been sharing their knowledge and experience with students at their alma mater since last year, serving as adjunct professors in the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. During the 2023–2024 school year, they each taught two courses: Fundamentals of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and Nuclear Power Plant Engineering.

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation has awarded a total of $50 million in cooperative agreements to the Consortium for Enabling Technologies and Innovation and the Enabling Capabilities in Technology Consortium. These two university/national lab consortia are each to receive as much as $5 million per year for five years to help support their basic and applied science research, which, in turn, will support the nuclear security and nonproliferation missions of the NNSA and workforce development for the Department of Energy’s national laboratories.

The American Nuclear Society President’s Special Committee on Certification is continuing to make progress toward launching a nuclear certification program. The program, which was outlined to the ANS Board of Directors in 2023, is being designed to help establish industry standards and bridge workforce gaps in the nuclear sector to address the growing demand for qualified professionals in the nuclear industry.

A computer rendering of a tokamak device designed by students at the University of New South Wales. (Credit: UNSW)

A recent article on Australia’s ABC News website highlighted the work of undergraduate physics and engineering students at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to design, build, and operate their own small nuclear fusion reactor. The ambitious work, known as the AtomCraft project, is being led by associate professor Patrick Burr with the objective of producing a student-built tokamak reactor by the end of 2026.

Australia-based HB-11 Energy and U.K.-based Tokamak Energy have partnered with UNSW for the project.

Research goals: The AtomCraft project has the following research goals for participating students, according to its website:

Our team aims [to] make the world’s first fusion reactor entirely designed, built, and operated by students. And [to] do so in 2 years. You will develop innovative solutions to engineering challenges across many engineering disciplines, work closely with industry partners, and be part a vibrant team of enthusiastic and dedicated people who want to push the boundaries of what is possible with fusion energy.

Results of two new surveys have shed light on American public opinion regarding nuclear energy. The surveys, which were conducted with very different methods, offer generally encouraging news for the nuclear industry.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Four minority-serving institutions (MSIs) have been named by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as recipients of scholarship and fellowship grants worth a total value of $1.78 million.