February 2022

February 25, 2022February 24, 2022

Is Nuclear Clean?

SPEAKER:

Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar

Ph.D. - Associate Professor, Associate Dean, Reactor Administrator, and American Nuclear Society President

DATE/TIME:

FRI, 02/25/2022 - 3:00PM TO 4:00PM

LOCATION:

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Spring 2022 Colloquium Series

Abstract:

About the Speaker:

Dunzik-Gougar has a B.S. in chemistry from Cedar Crest College and received an M.S. in environmental engineering along with her Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests include the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear fuels and materials development, spent fuel processing, and waste form development.

In 2011 and 2014, she was the recipient of ANS Presidential Citations in addition to the Landis Public Communication and Education Award in 2014.

February 18, 2022March 15, 2022

For a Safer Nuclear Outlook: Learning from Experience within an Adaptive & Generic Probabilistic Safety Assessment Framework

SPEAKER:

Dr. Ali Ayoub

Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

DATE/TIME:

Fri, 02/18/2022 - 3:00PM TO 4:00PM

LOCATION:

3105 ETCHEVERRY HALL

Spring 2022 Colloquium Series

Abstract:

The worldwide civil nuclear operations have accumulated more than 19’000 reactor-years of experience providing substantial amounts of data and knowledge. With the goal of more intensively learn from this experience to verify and improve the level of nuclear safety, this talk presents the research carried out at the ETH Zurich covering the following inter-woven parts:

1) The continued development and establishment of a novel open comprehensive nuclear events database; 2) subsequent event and statistical analysis to learn from the past and extract lessons, in particular, for 3) the development of generic & simplified Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) models, with a main motivation of enabling large-scale precursor analysis, and 4) exploiting the simplified PSA models and the performed large scale precursor analyses to offer a comprehensive statistical study of the operational risk in the civil nuclear sector.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Ali Ayoub is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his PhD (2021) and MSc (2018) in Nuclear Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). He has worked and published on various research topics including probabilistic risk assessment (PRA), precursor analysis, uncertainty quantification, safety culture, and risk communication. His general research interests are around the area of risk analysis, nuclear and critical infrastructures safety, resilience engineering, decision-making, and energy policy.

February 18, 2022February 18, 2022

Hi Vo, our former grad student and NSSC fellow awarded a LANL directors funded post doc.

February 11th, 2022

Across all divisions, the LANL postdocs went through a competitive process in order to be selected for the fellowship based on previous research merit and the strength of the postdoc research proposal.
Director Postdoc fellowship provides full, 2/3, 1/3 funding for each subsequent year to support Hi Vo's research proposal.
Hi Vo's Director funded research proposal is on the exploration of unit and collective plastic deformation processes using in situ 4DSTEM mechanical testing and 3D-EBSD.

Congratulations Hi Vo! What a wonderful achievement!

February 16, 2022October 3, 2024

Peter Hosemann, Professor and Chair chosen as 2022 TMS Brimacombe Medalist Award Winner

February 10th, 2022

The Brimacomb award award recognizes Professor Hosemann for his sustained excellence and achievements in materials science and engineering, and his record of continuing service to the profession. He received this award specifically for his contribution to micro and macroscale mechanical testing of irradiated materials and in-situ materials testing and continued dedication to TMS and education. Professor Hosemann is a dedicated member to the Minerals, Metals and Materials society which is also a professional home of a wide range of nuclear materials topics.........More Info about the award

The formal presentation of the award will be at the TMS-AIME Annual Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, March 3, during the TMS 2022 Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California.

Congratulations Professor and Chair Peter Hosemann!

February 4, 2022March 17, 2022

From Superheavy Elements to the Stockpile: The Journey of a Cal Grad

SPEAKER:

Dr. Sarah Nelson

DATE/TIME:

Fri, 02/04/2022 - 3:00PM TO 4:00PM

LOCATION:

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Spring 2022 Colloquium Series

Abstract:

TBD

About the Speaker:

Dr. Sarah Nelson, a nuclear and radiochemist, serves as the Director (Acting) for the Office of Experimental Sciences for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (NA-11), including Academic Programs. Sarah joined Defense Programs in mid-November 2015 as the office Deputy Director.

Sarah earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry with Distinction from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She earned her doctorate in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley with Professor Heino Nitsche.

Prior to joining NNSA, Sarah completed postdoctoral research as a Roger Batzel fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and afterward as a staff scientist for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on assignment to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Sarah also was selected as a Christine Mirzayan Science & Technology Policy Fellow of The National Academies for the Winter 2012 assisting the Board on Physics and Astronomy.

She has received numerous awards including US DOE Secretary’s Achievement Award, DTRA/US STRATCOM Center for Combatting Weapons of Mass Destruction Director’s Award for Public Service, LLNL’s Excellence in Publication Award in Basic Science, and the Gordon Battelle Prize for Scientific Discovery.