One of NC State's newest nuclear engineering professor, Dr. Katharina Stapelmann, shares her 'plasma for the life sciences' research with the next generation.
More details
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Fall greetings from the department head...
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I am glad to announce our fall departmental newsletter where we share the latest developments and success stories taking place in NC State's Nuclear Engineering Department.
Continuing the tradition of firsts, we are the 1
st
Nuclear Engineering (NE) program with the 1
st
civilian university reactor in United States, and currently the largest stand-alone NE department with a research reactor in the southeast United States. In last few years, with strong support of our College of Engineering (COE), we've experienced steady growth and have attained an outstanding reputation. We've increased the number of faculty and graduate students and have established new research units and experimental laboratories. Currently we have 19 tenured/tenure track faculty with 2 expected positions in academic year 2018-19.
Our faculty, staff and students have been recognized for numerous international, national & university awards and leadership appointments. Our sponsored research funding has steadily increased and for July 2017 through June 2018 we had $ 11.32 million in grant expenditures and received $11.36 million in grant awards.
Our 2018 graduate program ranking is
4
th
by US News & World Repor
t.
And our 2018 online Master of Nuclear Engineering ranking is
1
st
by Best College Reviews
. Our senior design teams have been working on real-world topics with industry & national lab sponsorship. Our teaching and research labs, student spaces and conference rooms are being continually enhanced.
Our vision for the department is to be the premier, internationally-recognized graduate and undergraduate programs in the field. Our current goals include,
- increasing external visibility on a national and international level;
- increasing cooperation with industry, national laboratories and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission;
- expanding our distance education program;
- effective (under) graduate student recruitment, retention and graduation;
- faculty hiring including expansion of joint faculty appointments (JFAs) with national labs;
- performing interdisciplinary research to address grand challenges in nuclear energy, nuclear safety, security & non-proliferation, along with the training and education of the next generation nuclear engineers,
I hope that these snapshots of current and future activities wet your interest. And we hope to see you at our Nuclear Engineering Homecoming event on November 2!
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Dr. Dinh to lead AI project funded by APRA-E Program
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The project,
Development of a Nearly Autonomous Management and Control System for Advanced Reactors
, seeks to develop a highly automated management and control system for advanced nuclear reactors. The system will provide recommendations to plant operators and will use artificial intelligence and continuous data monitoring to predict future plant status through machine learning. Ultimately, the team seeks to enable a significantly smaller operational staff to manage the plant, assisted by instrumentation, operator training, and smart procedures, reducing overall operational cost.
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Two Faculty Openings
The Department of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University invites applications for
- a tenure-track position in the area of advanced nuclear reactors. This involves next generation methods, design and uncertainty analysis, data analytics, and real time simulations. We are seeking highly qualified candidates committed to a career in research and teaching. Exceptional candidates will be considered at the Associate/Full Professor level, however the focus will be at the Assistant Professor rank.
- a tenure-track position in one of our primary research areas: Nuclear Power Engineering, Radiation Science, Plasma Science, Nuclear Materials, Waste Forms and Storage, Nuclear Security and Non-Proliferation, and Nuclear Computational Science. We are seeking highly qualified candidates committed to a career in research and teaching.
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Announcing a minor in health physics
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NC State’s Nuclear Engineering Department now offers a minor in health physics and is open to any campus student. For students enrolled in the department’s 5-year accelerated bachelor-master program (ABM), they can also receive the health physics minor by taking the appropriate courses.
A multidisciplinary minor of engineering, science and statistics courses, it will equip students to work in various facets of nuclear science and engineering. Health physicists are crucial professionals to the nuclear energy and health enterprise and NC State’s Nuclear Engineering program is doing its part to prepare the next generation.
Dr. Hayes serves as the adviser for this minor.
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Researchers from North Carolina State University have demonstrated a technique that can determine whether bricks – the common building material – have ever been near a radiological source, and identify the specific type of source, such as high enriched uranium or plutonium. The technique is possible when there are no chemical residues left behind, and has security and nuclear nonproliferation applications.
O'Mara is an executive member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (RPSD)
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Congratulations to Jonathan Coburn, one of only five early career scientists or engineers chosen as a Monaco/
ITER
Postdoctoral Fellow.
"[His] innate desire to contribute to ITER did not come about overnight. It gradually manifested through years of coursework, internships, and meaningful conversations with professionals in the field. As my Ph.D. concludes and my career unfolds, I look forward to playing my part in making fusion power a viable energy solution. Participating in the ITER Postdoctoral Fellowship, working on-site with experts on the world’s largest fusion project, will be an unprecedented way to begin that career.”
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His dissertation was entitled, “Effect of Neutron Irradiation on Mechanical Behavior of Ultra-Fine Grained Low Carbon Steel – Application to Next Generation Fission Reactors”.
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Brandon was honored for his submission, “Preliminary Risk Assessment of Generalized Molten Salt Reactor Off-Gas System” presented at the 2017 American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting. Currently, he is a PhD student at Vanderbilt University.
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NC State Nuclear Engineering Wins Consolidated Innovative Nuclear Research Funding
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Congratulations to R&D awardees where principal investigators (PIs) are NC State Nuclear Engineering faculty members
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Dr. Scott Palmtag
assumed the position of Chief Technologist for Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL). In addition to this role, Palmtag joined NC State University (NCSU) full-time as a research professor.
With over 20 years of experience working with the US nuclear industry, Scott has been engaged with CASL for over 7 years and has been instrumental in the development of the VERA Core Simulator.
The Chief Technologist position is a new position within CASL that will replace the position of Chief Scientist. This change is intended to acknowledge the shifting focus of CASL over the remaining 2 years with more emphasis on deploying CASL technology to the US nuclear industry with less emphasis on basic scientific research.
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CNEC
intern
Dylan Hoagland spent
the summer at Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL) investigating the use of deterministic radiation transport calculations for emission tomography of spent nuclear fuel, in support of nuclear safeguards.
Passive gamma emission tomography uses small gamma detectors behind a collimator, which narrows their field of view, to reconstruct a pin-wise emission distribution inside a spent fuel assembly, thus allowing for the detection of proliferated nuclear material. Dylan’s work is focused on investigating the origin of gammas which reach the detectors, so as to gain insight into the advantageous parts of the model to allocate computational resources to in order to resolve a discrepancy between models.
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Congratulations to Nathan Porter (picture above) and Yang Liu, two
NC State Nuclear Engineering
graduate students, for 1st and 2nd place best student paper awards at the Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty International Conference.
Dr. Nam Dinh
serves as faculty adviser to Mr. Liu. The paper titles were
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Porter, V. Mousseau, M. Avramova,
“Quantified Validation with Uncertainty Analysis for Turbulent Single Phase Friction Model”
Liu, N.Dinh, Y.Sato, amd B. Niceno,
“Validation and Uncertainty Quantification of DNB Closures in MCFD Solver Using Inverse Bayesian Inference Method”
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Murty and wife establish scholarship in memory of his parents
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Progress Energy Distinguished Professor
Dr. K. Linga (KL) Murty
and his wife, Ratnaveni, established a $25,000 endowed scholarship this past January. The scholarship will be awarded to an undergraduate student in pursuit of a nuclear engineering degree. The Kalaprapurna Dr. K. Subbaraju and Mrs. K. Subhadramma Memorial Scholarship is in memory of his parents; ‘Kalaprapurna’, meaning ‘Arts Full’ or ‘Arts Complete’.
His parents were known for their philanthropic activities
in their hometown of Anakapalle, India. They founded such organizations as the Cultural Association at Anakapalle, Sarada Public Library, the Anakapalle Merchants Association Lingamurty College, the Gandhi TB Clinic, and the Prema Samajam Orphanage. His father was bestowed his honorary title by Andhra University in Visakhapatnam, India for this work.
This scholarship joins another established in 2012 by Dr. and Mrs. Murty. The 2012 scholarship is awarded to a student of nuclear engineering or materials science and engineering.
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Mr. William D. Magwood IV, Director-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA),
visited NC State. Prior to this position, he served from 2010 to 2014 as one of the five Commissioners appointed by the US President and confirmed by the US Senate to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
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Dr. Gabriel Ilevbare, Manager, Materials Science and Engineering Department, Mr. Steven Prescott,
Software Analysis & Integration Engineer and Dr. Marsha J. Lambregts Bala, R&D Strategic Initiatives Relationship Manager
Partnerships, Engagement and Technology Deployment from Idaho National Lab (INL) visited NC State.
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Their respective papers were
“TREAT Transient Modeling and Impact of Graphite Thermal Scattering“;
"Interface Tracking Simulations of Two-Phase Flow Utilizing Adaptive Meshing Capabilities“'; and,
“Multiphysics Analysis of Silicon Carbide and Zircaloy Cladding“.
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NC State nuclear engineering alumni Devon Gallagher & Nicholas Wilson, spoke with our ANS Student Chapter about co-ops, internships and work life at Dominion Energy. They did in- department interviews as well.
Thanks Savannah River Nuclear Solutions and US Navy for also visiting. Sandia National Lab visits in the near future.
We'd love to have you come for a visit - give a presentation to our student chapters of American Nuclear Society (ANS) and Women in Nuclear (WiN).
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Follow us, NCSateNuclear, on
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You can also watch our graduate research seminar series and faculty research presentations on the
You Tube Channel.
And we'd love to hear about your activities since graduating!
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The department now had a
two-minute and a
five-minute video featuring students, alumni and faculty speaking to "why nuclear engineering at NC State?
Shots of the labs, North Campus and Centennial Campus are present.
Haven't been to the Hunt Engineering Library, get some glimpses on the videos as well as
here.
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2018-19 ANS scholarship recipients
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Left to right
Jesse Jones
, Ely M. Gelbard Graduate Scholarship
William Murra
y, Pittsburgh Local Section Graduate Scholarship
Nina Sorrell
, Alan F. Henry/Paul A. Greebler Memorial Scholarship
Jonathan Crozier
, Junior/Senior Scholarship
Charles Goodman, Sophomore Scholarship
Down and across...
Thomas Folk
, Junior/Senior Scholarship
Megan Smith
, Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences Division Graduate Scholarship
Samuel Cope
, Everitt P. Blizard Graduate Scholarship (and the
Landauer Scholarship from the Health Physics Society)
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No donation is too small to impact the next generation of NC State nuclear engineering students. Projects range from a new study suite, scholarships & fellowships, outreach monies for student conference expenses (especially senior design), summer pre-college programming and the list goes on. Contact me for more details.
We're also always interested in news from our alumni, partners and friends. And we'd love to reconnect with 'lost' alums, so if you know of someone who did not receive this newsletter, let us know how we can reconnect with them. And above all
do share this newsletter far and wide (family, friends, listservs etc).
Thanks to all faculty, staff & students for contributing.
Lisa
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Director of Nuclear Outreach, Retention & Engagement-Lecturer-Adviser
CNEC Educational Outreach Director
2017-20 ANS Board of Directors
Nuclear Matters Advocacy Council Member
Chair, NC State's Association of Women Faculty
919-515-5876
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