NSE’s Matteo Bucci wins inaugural DOE Distinguished Career Award
Matteo Bucci, an associate professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering is an inaugural winner of the Distinguished Early Career Award given by the US Department of Energy for Nuclear Energy Projects.
Bucci receives the award for his project titled “The application of advanced high-resolution optical diagnostics to answer long-standing questions and make new discoveries in boiling heat transfer in LWR conditions”. The $625,000 grant will support Bucci's study of boiling heat transfer and the boiling crisis in prototypical light water reactor (LWR) conditions. The project will employ high-resolution optical diagnostics to measure the time-dependent temperature, heat flux, and vapor phase distribution on the boiling surface, vapor distribution, and velocity in the flow. These measurements address a long-standing dilemma related to the boiling of water and the boiling crisis in nuclear reactor conditions.
This newly established DOE Distinguished Early Career Program has allocated more than $3.1 million to support five early career faculty in five states working on Nuclear Energy Projects. The program is one of three recently funded by DOE which support nuclear technology development, infrastructure improvements, and career opportunities at more than 40 U.S. universities. They will also help move the nation closer toward its goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 by expanding access to nuclear energy—the nation’s largest source of clean power.
July 2022
Department of Nuclear Science & Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Cambridge, MA 02139
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