International Students Say They Value Close Relationships With Professors

By Jeffrey Thomas

As Need for Nuclear Engineers Grows, Michigan Program Rated First

Washington - Mention nuclear engineering and most people think of nuclear power plants and the controversy that surrounds them after accidents, most famously in 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, the worst nuclear accident in history.

But nuclear engineers work in a range of disciplines, from nuclear science and energy applications to bioengineering, instrumentation, environmental science and health care.

Students studying nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at the University of Michigan, a program ranked as the very best by U.S. News and World Report magazine, focus on subject areas that include fission reactor analysis, safety and radiation transport, nuclear materials, nuclear fusion and plasma physics, and nuclear radiation measurements and imaging.

"This broad strength across all these areas is unusual for nuclear engineering departments and is probably a key factor in our ranking, as well as our attractiveness for prospective students," said William R. Martin, professor and chairman of the university's Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS).

Martin's department includes 20 regular faculty members, more than 100 graduate students and more than 100 undergraduate students.

"Because we are so strong across the spectrum of nuclear engineering," he said, "incoming students have a lot of choices for graduate research."

NUCLEAR PROCESSES

Nuclear engineers are concerned with the science of nuclear processes and their application to different technologies. Such processes are fundamental in medical diagnosis and treatment and in basic and applied research using accelerator, laser and superconducting magnetic systems.

More than a third of all medical procedures in the United States use nuclear techniques to create images of the internal human body, detect and measure biological processes and provide therapy.

Around the world, commercial nuclear power plants use nuclear fission - the process of breaking up or splitting the nucleus of an atom and using the resulting energy to heat water into pressurized steam that drives a turbine generator to produce electricity.

Nuclear fusion - the process of combining the nuclei of two atoms to produce energy - is not yet a commercial process, although some experimental reactors exist. Developing economic fusion energy systems is one of the grand challenges of nuclear engineering.

Another grand challenge is developing systems for the safe and permanent disposal of radioactive waste.

WORK AND STUDY

Jinan Yang, a fourth-year doctoral candidate from China who returned to graduate school after working in the field for many years, said she values the close working relationship she has with her professors.

"The most important aspect of my experience at the University of Michigan is that I am able to study and work among people who are at the very forefront of nuclear fission research," Yang said. "Professors in my department are very willing to help students whenever we ask."

Her thesis adviser, Edward Larsen, a world expert in his field, "gives out his own lecture notes," she says. "Our students make a joke of that as the 'reactor bible.'" She said the department chairman, William Martin, "always has time for you, no matter how busy he is."

Kaushik Banerjee, a fourth-year doctoral candidate from India, also cites the "world-class" faculty, excellent labs and atmosphere as important. "Faculty [members] try to motivate us, the students, all the time," he said. "Our department is like a family. Everybody cares about others."

Martin agrees that for international students - of whom there are about 40 in the graduate program - the most important aspect of their experience in the NERS program is the close working relationship between the student and graduate adviser and other faculty members in the department.

"The faculty of this department [is] well-known for [its] 'open-door' policy to work with students," he said. "Incoming graduate students are urged to select a faculty adviser early on in their career, and this helps to move students through our program in a timely fashion."

Banerjee finds his peers and the larger community a big part of the Michigan experience. "We have a very competitive, but healthy, environment," he said of himself and his fellow students. "We have great discussions, and those discussions are really motivating."

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Today, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there are 439 operating nuclear power plants, more than 30 nuclear reactors under construction, and almost 100 in the planning stages, most of them in Asia and Eastern Europe. In the United States, 104 nuclear power plants produce more than 20 percent of the nation's electricity, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Bush administration has touted nuclear energy as an important part of achieving energy independence while addressing climate change. During the recent presidential campaign, President-elect Barack Obama said he was "not a nuclear energy proponent," singling out as a problem the storage of nuclear waste. But he promised to "find ways to safely harness nuclear power."

In its latest 10-year projection, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said employment growth in nuclear engineering was expected to average 7 percent, with the number of nuclear engineering graduates in rough balance with the number of job openings.

More recently, articles in the popular press have suggested the field may be entering a boom, and the American Nuclear Society has said three times as many jobs are available as there are job candidates. International nuclear agencies have said the world may be on the verge of an even more acute shortage.

According to the American Physical Society, many of the 15,000 nuclear engineers now in the field in the United States are nearing retirement age and more than one-third are expected to retire in the next five years.

For more information about top-ranked education programs see Study in the U.S. ( http://amlife.america.gov/amlife/education/study.html )

The December 2008 eJournal USA Choosing a Career ( http://www.america.gov/publications/ejournalusa.html ) explores how young people might discover their life's work.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)

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