DEPARTMENT NEWS
In its March 30 issue, U.S.
News & World Report ranked the UW-Madison College of
Engineering 14th in the nation for graduate education, compared
with 15th in 2006. The college tied with Texas A&M University.
Among nine individual disciplines ranked in the top 20, nuclear
engineering ranked in the top five.
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IBM Research GmbH, Zurich Research Laboratory, has awarded a one-year,
$84,000 grant to Research Professor Kumar
Sridharan and Robert Carpick,
associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and
Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania. The two will study
nanotribology and manufacturability of carbon-based materials for nanofabrication.
They will investigate the feasibility of plasma-based technologies for
deposition of nanometer-scale, adherent, wear-resistant, low surface
energy films on scanning probe-based nanotips for addressing fabrication
issues related to the IBM Millipede project for the next generation
of computing devices.
Three nuclear engineering PhD students received four
best-talk awards at the American Nuclear Society Student Conference
March 29 through 31 in Corvallis, Oregon, at Oregon State University.
Student Ross Radel earned two awards for his talk,
“Detection of HEU using a pulsed inertial electrostatic confinement
D-D fusion device,” in the nuclear fusion and non-proliferation
and international safeguards categories. Rachel Slaybaugh
earned an award for her talk, “Radiation treatment planning using
discrete ordinates codes,” in the radiation health physics category,
and Hannah Yount earned an award for her talk, “Radiation
resiliency studies of dual phase magnesia-zirconia ceramics for use
as inert matrix fuels,” in the assorted topics category.
Kent Wardle, a nuclear engineering
PhD student, has received a scholarship from the Roy G. Post Foundation,
a nonprofit organization dedicated to education in the safe management
of nuclear materials. Wardle also will receive complementary registration
and transportation to the 2007 Waste Management Conference, founded
by Roy G. Post, where he will formally receive his award. Wardle’s
doctoral research is focused on modeling and design of the annular centrifugal
contactor, which is the key piece of equipment in advanced processes
for recycling used nuclear fuel. He is conducting this research through
a partnership with the Argonne National Laboratory Chemical Engineering
Division.
Engineering mechanics and astronautics undergraduate
student John Springmann received a 2007 UW-Madison
Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship, which includes $5,000
in total funding. Working with Associate Professor Wendy
Crone, Springmann will study new approaches for applying polymeric
hydrogels in everything from microfluidic devices to tissue engineering.
Crone is interested in exploring fundamental mechanical properties of
hydrogels over the range of polymeric materials in these areas. Springmann’s
results will provide important preliminary results that will be the
foundation for a competitive full research proposal.
An April 27 story, “Workers in short supply
for U.S. nuclear power,” on thestar.com quoted Tracy Radel,
a UW-Madison nuclear engineering student, about how safety concerns
(in particular, reminiscent of Three Mile Island or Chernobyl) affect
students’ choice of nuclear engineering as a career. “There’s
a lot less emotion involved there,” said Radel, who sees nuclear
energy as an earth-friendly alternative to coal and gas. The wire-service
story highlighted the immediate need for educated, skilled workers to
safely run current and future reactors. Read the story at tinyurl.com/yv97zq.
