News
The Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program at The University of Texas at Austin proudly congratulates Khiloni Shah on the successful defense of her PhD dissertation, “Measurement of the ⁴⁰Ca(n,α)³⁷Ar Thermal Neutron Cross Section.”
This past May, NETL staff members, Rodrigo Viveros Duran and Tristan Brannon, successfully passed the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Senior Reactor Operator exam.
No registration necessary. All are invited to attend this co-sponsored event on nuclear power in Texas between the KBH Energy Center, OLLI, and UT's Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program on September 15, 2025 from 1:00-3:30PM in the LBJ Auditorium in Sid Richardson Hall on campus.
The Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program at The University of Texas at Austin proudly hosted two hands-on professional development workshops for high school STEM teachers. Held on July 17 and July 24 at the Nuclear Engineering Teaching Lab (NETL) on the Pickle Research Campus, these sessions brought together educators from across Austin and surrounding areas to deepen their understanding of nuclear science and radiation technologies.
Graduate student Nick Kaitschuck makes a poster presentation of research work done with Dr. Landsberger on the optimization of rare-earth elements characterization at the Modern Trends in Activation Analysis conference in Budapest, Hungary May 6-10. Nick also gave an oral presentation on the use of Compton suppression in preparation of cellulose reference materials.
Justine Davidson who received her PhD in spring 2024 has been given a Citation to accompany the Award of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service. Justine is an employee of Los Alamos National Laboratory and spent several in Washington DC was recognized for exceptional public service as Senior Scientific Advisor to the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, from April 2021-April 2024.
For the first time, new Assistant Professor Dr. Elena Zannoni taught the M E 397 Radiological Imaging and Instrumentation course in the 2024 spring semester in the Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program. The course gives an overview of modern imaging techniques and instrumentation in three segments: physical and mathematical foundations, transmission imaging and emission imaging.
Christopher Martin wins second place at the State of Texas Chapter of the Health Physics Society meeting on April 20, 2024, at Texas A&M in College Station. Christopher’s presentation was Rapid, High Accuracy and Precision Analysis of Uranium Content in Texas Ore using self-attenuation gamma-ray spectroscopy. This work is sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Nuclear Material Support Services (NPI-9).
Dr. Landsberger gave a series of five invited lectures in the Department of Physics at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia during the week of April 15, 2024. The series was entitled Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Science and Nuclear Engineering. Lecture topics included neutron activation analysis, pop-culture goes nuclear, radioactivity in the oil exploration sector, low-level gamma ray counting, development of experiments in health physics to reinforce basic radiation protection concepts, and coincidence and anti-coincidence gamma ray spectroscopy in radionuclide identification. The Department of Physics has very advanced techniques in coincidence gamma-ray spectroscopy. Further educational and research collaboration was discussed.
The Nuclear and Radiation Engineering Program and Nuclear and Applied Robotics Group supported four of the ten projects for the Freshman Introduction to Research Engineering Course ME 177K. This course is designed to introduce research skills to first year students in their first or second semesters. Second and third prizes of $300 and $200 were awarded to Robotics and Compton Camera: Autonomous Radiation Detection and Robotic Additive Manufacturing, respectively.
