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Research

RadLab

The RadLab at The University of Texas at Austin focuses on research using radiation and radioactivity to improve security and quality of life.

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Facilities

Reactor

The NETL reactor, designed by General Atomics, is a TRIGA Mark II nuclear research reactor. The NETL is the newest of the current fleet of U.S. university reactors.

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Research

Robotics

The Nuclear and Applied Robotics Group is an interdisciplinary research group whose mission is to develop and deploy advanced robotics in hazardous environments in order to minimize risk for the human operator.

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News

September 11, 2020

NRE Faculty Join Multi-University Partnership to Design New Nuclear Research Reactor

September 11, 2020

Dr. Derek Haas as Principal Investigator and Dr. Kevin Clarno and Dr. William Charlton as Co-Principal investigators, have received the single largest grant ever funded to the Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program to lead the design of the reactor bay experimental research facilities and collaborate on the design and safety analysis for the first university-based molten salt research reactor. The $3.8 million grant is part of $30 million dollars allocated to The Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing Research Alliance launched in spring 2019 and also includes Abilene Christian University (lead university where the research reactor will be built), Texas A&M University and Georgia Institute of Technology all who are partnering with Natura Resources. They are also recruiting students and hiring several positions to staff the project, including one research fellow, one senior research fellow and a research associate.

September 11, 2020

National Fellowship Awarded to Khiloni Shah

September 11, 2020

Congratulations to Khiloni Shah for receiving the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate fellowship. The NSF GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions. The fellowship includes three years of financial support including an annual stipend of $34,000 and a cost of education allowance of $12,000 to the institution. Khiloni will continue to work with Dr. Derek Haas in Nuclear Forensics.

Khiloni Shah

September 11, 2020

Collin Brennan Receives National Fellowship

September 11, 2020

Congratulations to second year PhD graduate student Collin Brennan for receiving the Department of Energy Nuclear Engineering University Integrated University Program Fellowship. The three-year, $161,000 fellowship includes a stipend for an internship at a national laboratory. Collin will continue to work with Dr. Kevin Clarno in computational nuclear engineering.

Collin Brennan

September 11, 2020

Cockrell School Awards Fellowships to NRE Students

September 11, 2020

The Cockrell School of Engineering awards highly qualified first year graduate students one-year and partial fellowship. Congratulations to Dylan Wray and Kyzer Gerez for receiving the CSE one-year fellowship award which includes stipend, tuition and a $9,000/yr additional 4-year award. And congratulations to Mary Tebben for receiving the CSE award and to Conny Egozi for receiving the $9,000/yr additional 4-year award.

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September 11, 2020

Upayan Mathkari is First Student in NRE Integrated Bachelor's and Master's Degree Program

September 11, 2020

We congratulate Upayan Mathkari as the first student in our Integrated Bachelor's and Master's Degree Program in our Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program. By applying AP and Credit by Exam courses, having students take recommended summer courses, and allowing seniors to enroll in graduate-level engineering courses reserved for graduate credit, the program enables graduates to complete both degree requirements in five years.

Upayan Mathkari

September 11, 2020

Dr. Mitch Pryor Promoted to Senior Research Scientist

September 11, 2020

Congratulations to Dr. Mitch Pryor to his promotion to Senior Research Scientist. Dr. Pryor heads up the highly successful national and internationally known Nuclear and Applied Robotics Group and has graduated multiple PhD and MS students involved in interdisciplinary research programs for applied robotics in hazardous environments.

Mitch Pryor

September 11, 2020

Dr. Sheldon Landsberger Receives Da Vinci Award

September 11, 2020

Dr. Sheldon Landsberger is 2019-2020 recipient of the Da Vinci Award for outstanding teaching, research, and service by a Full Professor awarded by the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Sheldon Landsberger

Research Updates

September 11, 2020

Ryan Lester

September 11, 2020

Ryan Lester, MS student working with Dr. Derek Haas is designing a facility on one of the neutron beam ports in the reactor bay for the production of gaseous radiotracers for nuclear forensics application. Using cryogenic technology allows the placement of the sample much closer to the reactor core thus receiving a much higher neutron flux.

Ryan Lester

September 11, 2020

Mark Andrews

September 11, 2020

Research Engineer Mark Andrews working with Dr. William Charlton is studying the impact of irradiation of electronic components by mixed-fields of neutron and gamma-ray radiation with specific interests in the impact of thermal neutrons and the change in degradation due to the order of radiation incidence (for example, gamma-rays followed by neutrons versus neutrons followed by gamma-rays). The specific modes of damage vary depending upon the type and energy of the radiation incident upon the device.

Mark Andrews

September 11, 2020

Adam Samia

September 11, 2020

PhD Student Adam Samia working with Dr. William Charlton is studying enhanced radiochemical separation of reactor-produced medical radioisotopes using the well-known Szilard-Chalmers effect with capture of the activated products during irradiation. He is studying two pathways for capture of the products: (1) using a solid adsorber suspended in an aqueous target solution and (2) by chemical reaction with a chelator in solution with the target material in solid form. Both pathways lead to simplified post-irradiation separation of the no-carrier-added product material through simple filtration techniques.

Adam Samia

September 11, 2020

Dr. Blake Anderson

September 11, 2020

Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Blake Anderson working with Dr. Mitch Pryor has developed a robotic system and analysis algorithms for locating unknown radioactive sources in nuclear environments. A scintillating detector on the robot collects a sequence of measurements at different locations, and the source positions and activities are estimated using statistical filtering methods. Gamma-ray spectroscopy identifies the species of the sources and enables robust background subtraction. The developed capabilities include modelling of attenuation by solid objects and decay of short-lived isotopes.

Blake Anderson

September 11, 2020

Tucker Sawyer and John Barlow

September 11, 2020

Tucker Sawyer and John Barlow working with Dr. Kevin Clarno are helping with the design and licensing of an advanced nuclear reactor, fueled with molten salt, that will be built in Texas in 2025. They are using the SCALE nuclear analysis code suite to model the transport of radiation throughout the reactor to determine the spatial distribution of the heat being generated from fission energy and assess how that distribution and magnitude will change as the fuel depletes and reactor operates.

Sawyer Tucker and John Barlow

September 11, 2020

Amaya Sinha and Colin Brennan

September 11, 2020

Amaya Sinha an undergraduate student in the Physics Department and graduate student Colin Brennan have been working with Dr. Sheldon Landsberger in conjunction with Dr. Yuval Goren at the Ancient Near East and Department of Bible Archaeology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. This pilot program is to ascertain the provenance of fifteen ancient pottery samples using neutron activation analysis (Colin Brennan) and principal component analysis (Amaya Sinha). Below are the results depicting two clusters and one outlier.

Inan Sinha and Colin Brennan