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Zach Hartwig applies physics, teamwork to create new tools for fusion energy scienceAs an undergraduate engineering student, Zach Hartwig was introduced to the methods, procedures and practices that form an engineer’s toolkit. But, he recalls, his real interest was in “the principles the tools were built on, the fundamental physics that lay behind them.” So he switched majors and became a physicist, spending the next few years working in particle physics before joining the MIT NSE doctoral program. ... more |
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Jake Jurewicz: An undergraduate contributes to fusion reactor advancementLike many in the MIT community, Jake Jurewicz has felt a lifelong attraction to engineering. “Growing up, all I ever played with were Legos and Lincoln Logs, things that involved building,” he recalls. ... more |
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Lindsey Anne Gilman: Better boiling for more efficient energy productionFor Lindsey Anne Gilman, SM ’12, playing with bubbles is serious work. Her PhD research project, launched this past summer, concerns ways of improving heat transfer for energy production utilizing boiling water. In nuclear reactors, the formation and movement of bubbles in boiling water turns out to be a critical issue: “If instead of nice little bubbles leaving the surface of the fuel, you get a film of vapor forming, the temperature of the fuel rods can increase,” says Gilman. “When this happens, you have reached critical heat flux. The concern is that if the temperature of the fuel rods gets high enough, the structural integrity of the rods might be compromised, and even fail.” ... more |
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Ekaterina Paramonova: A nuclear networkerEkaterina (Katia) Paramonova ’13 acknowledges starting Course 22 with some distinct advantages: both her father and grandfather work in the nuclear industry, and her Russian parents insisted on fluency in the language, opening up opportunities in another country with a well-established nuclear sector. Now this 19-year-old undergraduate is intent on leveraging her assets in some surprising ways, establishing a unique career track that intriguingly combines nuclear engineering and diplomacy. ... more |
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Daniel Casey: Exploring a “little star” on EarthIn 2010, after a decade of meticulous preparation, Daniel Casey and an MIT team finally ran their experiment. The world’s largest laser struck a millimeter-sized target, and in less than a second, it was all over. Casey, now a post-doctoral associate in MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, recalls, “You heard a little pop, but there was no other sight or sound in the control room.” Yet if the moment itself proved an anticlimax, the experiment has paid off in spades, yielding data that opens a window onto extreme conditions found nowhere else on Earth, and starting a new chapter in high energy density physics. ... more |
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Sara Ferry: A new generation works to fulfill the promise of nuclear energyThe world of nuclear technology is in a generational transition. Many nuclear engineers and scientists were trained between the 1950s and 1970s, but entry to the field slowed in subsequent decades; NSE Ph.D. student Sara Ferry is part of a new cadre of technologists who are working to fulfill the promise of nuclear energy in a world very different from that of their predecessors. ... more |
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Clarice Aiello: Finding quantum gold in diamond’s defectThe kind of diamond Clarice Aiello values does not come in a dazzling pear or square cut, swaddled in black velvet on a counter at Tiffany’s. Instead, it exists as a millimeter-sized chunk on a sturdy table in a lab she built. What’s more, Aiello is not searching for perfection in her rock, but imperfection of a remarkable kind: a naturally occurring defect in the diamond’s lattice that, if manipulated properly, gives rise to quantum phenomena. ... more |
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Ashley Finan: Developing better policy for energy innovationWhen Ashley Finan receives her Ph.D. in Nuclear Science and Engineering, it won’t be so much the culmination of an academic career as a milestone in a journey begun a decade ago. Finan credits some unique opportunities at MIT with setting her on a path toward a “place where it’s possible to make the most positive impact” on clean energy solutions and climate change. ... more |
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David Carpenter: Silicon Carbide Cladding Proves its MettleInnovation is powerful, but in a field like nuclear engineering, new materials, designs and processes must prove their merit under all foreseeable conditions before moving into everyday use. An NSE team is using specialized facilities of the MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory to evaluate a new approach to protecting reactor fuel rods, with the prospect of enabling better reactor performance and safety, while also reducing waste production. more |
