AESL student Dan Watson represented Texas A&M’s Nuclear Engineering Department at the recent Global Cyber Research Institute Summit on campus, alongside representatives from the Center for Nuclear Security Science and Policy Initiatives (NSSPI). Nuclear and cyber security have substantial overlap, and this summit was an excellent opportunity for raising awareness and making connections between nuclear and cyber organizations.
Graduate student Tyler Gates represented Texas A&M at the Nuclear Innovator Cultivation Camp (NICC 2024) sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). It brought together 13 participants from 6 U.S. Universities (TAMU, NC State, Michigan, MIT, Wisconsin, Berkeley), 2 Japanese Universities (Tokyo Tech, Fukui Uni.), and 1 Industrial Partner (Hitachi-GE) to collaborate and discuss the future of nuclear energy post-Fukushima. It was hosted at Tokyo Tech by Dr. Toru Obara and Dr. Tatsuya Katabuchi and featured speakers from JAEC, IRID, and Advanced Float Co. Ltd. Tours were provided of the High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Members of AESL recently attended the 2024 ANS Annual Conference in Las Vegas and presented research. Hui-Yu Hsieh gave two presentations, titled “Study of Parametric Fluctuations in Integral Reactor Configuration” and “Feasibility of Remote Monitoring of Microreactors Using Satellites and Leveraging Transfer Learning and Pre-trained Models”. Thabit Abuqudaira gave a presentation titled “Exploring the Effect of the Number of Delayed Neutron Precursors in Reactor Dynamics Simulatiuons of Molten Salt Reactors”.
Graduate and Undergraduate students from AESL presented their research at A&M’s Nuclear Engineering Spring BBQ and Poster Session. AESL presented a total of nine posters at this event, and attendees included members of the nuclear engineering department’s advisory council.
Dozens of Aggies in the Nuclear Engineering department are working on designing the new Molten Salt Research Reactor. AESL met with members of the Fuel Cycle and Materials Laboratory, led by Dr. Sean McDeavitt, and the Thermal Hydraulics Verification and Validation Laboratory, led by Dr. Mark Kimber, to discuss recent progress and future plans for the project.
Congratulations to our newest graduates! Ronald Gatchalian graduated with a PhD and Miguel Avalos graduated with a Master’s degree in December 2023.
