Dr. Randy Woodson, accompanied by the Dean for the College of Engineering, Dr. Louis Martin-Vega, recently paid a visit to nuclear engineering – interacting with faculty, students and staff. First stop was the Nuclear Engineering Alumni Wall of Fame where graduates of our program are honored for their contributions to the field. He then visited one of the nuclear materials laboratories where Dr. Djamel Kaoumi and his doctoral students, Ryan Schoell and Enguerrand Buckel, along with postdoctoral research scholar, Dr. Yuchen Zhao, showcased their work on the development of a mechanistic understanding of microstructure property relationships in nuclear materials, with an emphasis on microstructure evolution under harsh environment (i.e. irradiation, high temperature, and mechanical stress) and how it can impact macroscopic properties and performance.
Woodson and Martin-Vega next visited Dr. Katharina Stapelmann’s Plasma for the Life Sciences laboratory, where the characterization and optimization of plasma discharges used for biomedical applications and the understanding and improvement of plasmas used in medicine were discussed. Postdoctoral research scholar, Dr. Pietro Ranieri, along with doctoral students Brayden Myers and William Murray and undergraduate student researchers were on hand to explain their various projects.
The Nuclear Reactor Program was Drs. Woodson and Martin-Vega’s final stop. Dr. Ayman Hawari discussed the development of experimental facilities for nondestructive examination at research reactors and highlighted NC State’s PULSTAR reactor use in the internet reactor laboratory, undergraduate curriculum, licensing of students as reactor operators and various user facilities, namely the intense positron beam, ultra-cold neutron source, neutron powder diffraction and neutron imaging.
A packed visit highlighted some of the inner workings underway to advance the discipline and prepare the next generation of nuclear engineers. NC State’s Nuclear Engineering ranks 3rd in graduate programs by US News and World Report and 1st in the online master’s in nuclear engineering by Best Colleges Review.