Welcome To The Nuclear Engineering Department at UCB

For more than 20 years, nuclear science and engineering has been a sorely neglected field in terms of support required to train the next generation of engineers and scientists.Recently, the situation has dramatically changed. Our nation is now going through a nuclear renaissance with exponential growth in three areas of long-term strategic importance: energy security and independence; homeland security and non-proliferation; and nuclear medicine imaging and cancer therapy. The Nuclear Engineering Department has a significant role in educating the next generation of experts and in contributing to the cutting-edge research in these strategic areas. Expansion of job opportunities for NE graduates continues in industry, national laboratories, government, and medical facilities. Graduating Engineer & Computer Careers (Winter/Spring 2007 issue) talks about “The Resurgence of Nuclear Energy” pointing out that “over the next 10 years studies indicated that as many as 90,000 nuclear professionals may be needed to meet the needs of all segments of the industry in the U.S. alone.”

A new strategy - Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) - was developed in the US regarding the broader use of nuclear power in the world, where a global system was envisioned of nuclear fuel supplier nations (that have nuclear technology) that will enable developing nations (that do not have nuclear technology) to affordably use nuclear energy without increasing the risk of nuclear proliferation. Various federal agencies (DOE, NSF, DOD,..) have dramatically increased research and development opportunities in the areas of nuclear energy, minimization of nuclear waste by reprocessing of spent fuel, and development of new nuclear materials. More recently, the Department of Homeland Security has also begun a program to support university-based research to address radiation detection needs for non-proliferation and homeland security. As a consequence of this new trend, the level of funding for sponsored research in NE Department has grown considerably over the last three years: from $4.07 million in 2004-05, and $5.28 million in 2005-06, to $6.82 million in 2006-07.

These new opportunities have led to explosive growth in the number of applicants to our programs. We had an increase in the number of undergraduate (66) & graduate majors (57). The number of applicants to the program rose to 97 freshman applicants for Fall 2007 versus 89 freshman applicants for Fall 2006 and 59 for Fall 2005). During 2006-07, 34 degrees were awarded: 17 bachelor’s, 10 master’s and 6 doctoral degrees.

The department provided 100% funding for graduate students through fellowship, teaching and research positions in the department and at the nearby national laboratories. In 2006-7, 9 PhD students were directly supported by Lawrence Berkeley Lab and 12 PhD students were supported by Lawrence Livermore Lab. Student research support has risen from $630,795 last year to $1,179,902 this year.

In addition to winning many scholarships and fellowships, our students were successful in the 2006 ANS Student Design competition: both Berkeley teams (undergraduate and graduate) were the finalists and won second place!

Industry Partnership (support from PG&E, EPRI, Southern California Edison, General Atomics and Chevron Co.) led to increased funding for student support, laboratory, and facilities upgrade. The department renovated three new graduate student offices and upgraded instrumentation for our experimental teaching laboratory.

The NE Department is extremely happy to have attracted three extraordinary faculty members: Professor Tom Downar (reactor physics, large system analysis, numerical methods) joined our Department in January 2007, Professor-in-Residence Eric Norman (homeland security, neutrino physics and nuclear astrophysics) joined in June 2006, and Associate Professor-in-Residence Kai Vetter (applied nuclear physics, radiation detection, biomedical research, nuclear security) has joined in January 2007. Faculty were also singled out for well deserved honors: Ka-Ngo Leung won one of R&D Magazine’s prestigious R&D100 Awards for 2006, Kai Vetter received the prestigious Edward Teller Award for 2006, and Rick Norman was a co-winner of a Science and Technology award for 2006 at LLNL.

During the year, the faculty made final revisions to the undergraduate curriculum. The new curriculum is more flexible and gives students more choices, including the joint-major programs.

The Department was a co-organizer of the Joint International Topical Meeting on Mathematics & Computations and Supercomputing in Nuclear Applications, that was held in Monterey, CA, from April 15-19, 2007. The Department also hosted the ANS Science Teachers Workshop in collaboration with the ANS local section: 30 high-school science teachers from across California participated in activities including experiments, talks on fission and nuclear medicine, and a tour of the LBNL Advanced Light Source. The ANS student section hosted in our Department the “A.T.O.M.S. (Adventures Through Open Mind Science) club for kids” on February 2007, for a day of fun-filled education activities. Approximately 80 kids between the ages of seven and twelve attended the event, along with parents.

With very strong positions in research and teaching, our Department is ready for a long-delayed growth. According to the Nuclear Engineering Program Advisory Committee (NEPAC).

“The major issue facing the Department is one of sustainability and competitiveness. Peer NE Departments are successfully growing their student populations and faculty lines, which are resulting in their ability to increasingly attract research funding. The UCB/NE Department is institutionally constrained, despite the fact that adequate numbers of students are applying for enrollment.The troubling fact is that the UCB/NE Department is the only such department in the UC System. This means that students not admitted to this program must go out of the state of California for their nuclear engineering education. This fact makes the University’s decision on enrollment and faculty numbers one of strategic importance to the entire UC System. The faculty population needs to grow to cover topical gaps and to allow for proper coverage of the required curriculum. The committee has recommended that this issue become one of direct discussion with the leadership of the UC System.”

We will continue to address this issue in the coming year.

Sincerely,

Jasmina Vujic, Professor and Chair