DOE grant promotes nuclear engineering in the Big Ten
The University of Wisconsin is among four Big Ten schools recently awarded a five-year $1.97 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for the continued encouragement of growth in the field of nuclear engineering.
The consortium is led by Penn State and also includes the University of Illinois and Purdue University. The four participating institutions will share the grant to improve their educational and research facilities, as well as promote collaborations between them.
Michael Corradini, chair of the Department of Engineering Physics at UW, said that he is very glad that the DOE has awarded this grant and that the university has many plans for how to use it. The bulk of the money, he said, would go towards the upkeep of the nuclear reactor that is on campus.
“We’re buying new instruments and developing new training facilities,” Corradini said.
He said this would help increase the quality of the education of students in nuclear engineering in years to come. He said updating the equipment would also aid researchers who use the reactor.
Another major plan of the grant money, he said, is to set up a scholarship fund for undergraduates who are interested in the field of nuclear engineering.
Beyond the field of nuclear engineering, Corradini said the university plans to put this to money to a much broader use. He said that use of the reactor could have meaningful applications in other areas of research, such as geology, physics and medicine.
Because of this possibility, he said, the four universities have set aside a portion of the money for mini-grants.
“These mini-grants are intended for [researchers and professors] who would not normally have access to a nuclear reactor,” he said. “It will give them money to build their experiments.”
Corradini said he thinks this is a very important step by the DOE because the importance of nuclear engineering will only grow in the near future. Because of this, he said another main goal of the university is to improve the outreach of information on the topic of nuclear engineering to the local community.
“We want to go out to high schools and middle schools to improve the education and knowledge of the future of nuclear engineering,” he said.
Jack Brenizer, professor and program chair of nuclear engineering at Penn State University, said that he also sees a bright future in the world of nuclear engineering.
“Right now, 20 percent of the energy in this country is provided by nuclear power,” he said. “And, this number will probably increase over the next five years.”
Brenizer also said that, starting within the next 10 years, he thinks there will be a greater demand for the building of new nuclear power plants. He said that this will lead to an increased need for original, more efficient designs for these plants. He said he hopes this grant can be put toward a use such as this.
Corradini said that he too could see the importance of this grant in furthering the field of nuclear engineering for the application of nuclear power in the years ahead.
“I think nuclear power will be a big player in the world of energy,” he said. “So will nuclear engineers.”
