UC Berkeley NE teams recently won several major awards:

• Grant won for National Defense

UC Berkeley researchers will be working on a new project to improve nuclear defense technology, using a $1.4 million grant the campus received from the Department of Homeland Security and the National Science Foundation last month.

For more info, please click here or visit http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=25877

• Grant won to study Nuclear Detection for Homeland Security

The Berkeley team's $1.4 million grant - awarded after a tough national competition and potentially renewable for a total of $7.1 million over five years - is designed to develop nuclear-detection technology, improve risk assessment and help train a new generation of experts for a world that must cope with the rapidly expanding dangers of nuclear-materials proliferation.

Read more or visit http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/04/BAMVRSDNN.DTL

• For UC Berkeley Press release about NE grants, please visit

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/09/14_NEgrants.shtml

Congratulations!

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Ph.D. student in Nuclear Engineering, Michel Kireeff Covo, got an award for his poster in the student section during the last Particle Accelerator Conference in Albuquerque (NM). The award was conferred to the best two posters among 72 and included a check of $500. The on-site awards committee chose the winners on the basis of technical content and originality of research work, as well as organization, clarity, presentation skill and visual display. Congratulations!

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ANS Graduate Scholarship Award presented to Sara Mattafirri. A student of nuclear science and engineering recognized for outstanding efforts and academic achievements in pursuit of a college education. Congratulations Sara!

ANS STUDENT DESIGN CONTEST

Both UCB NE teams were finalists at the ANS-sponsored student design competition held November 12-16 in Albuquerque, NM, winning second place in both categories. Pictured above are Max Fratoni and Vincent Cordoliani (front row, center) and Martin Robel (back row, center).

Undergraduate Category
Use of Zirconium Hydride Fuel for Improved Long-life BWR Core Designs, Martin Robel, Lydia Im, H. Kim, Paul Monasterio, Robert Petroski, Adam Tang, and Beth Ellen Rosenberg (Univ of California-Berkeley)

Graduate Category
Heat Pipe Encapsulated Nuclear Heat Source, Max Fratoni, Lance Kim, Sara Mattafirri, and Robert Petroski (Univ of California-Berkeley

PHYSOR-2006, ANS / CNS Topical Meeting on Reactor Physics: 1st Prize - Student Paper Awarded to Massimiliano Fratoni for his paper entitled "Optimal Hydride Fueled BWR Assembly Designs". Congratulations Massimiliano!

BERKELEY LAB WINS FOUR PRESTIGIOUS 2006 "R&D 100" AWARDS FOR TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES
Dr. Ka-Ngo Leung, has won one of R&D Magazine's prestigious R&D 100 Awards for 2006. The editors' choices for the 100 most significant proven technological advances of the year, have gone to researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and their colleagues. His award designee is: The High-Output Coaxial-Target Neutron Generator, invented and engineered by members of the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division and the Engineering Division -- a compact cylindrical neutron generator capable of emitting quadrillions of neutrons per second, enough to compete with large accelerator facilities.

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Mishima Award
In recognition of outstanding contributions in in nuclear fuels and materials development
presented to
Professor Donald Olander
For seminal contributions in the field of nuclear materials, especially in the area of fuel behavior, high temperature chemistry and the behavior of gases in solids.

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Michel Kireeff Covo received one of ten "Distinguished Performance Awards" from the International Linear Collider (ILC) Particle Accelerator School in Japan. Michel was one of 76 attendees at the school, a mix of mostly grad students and post docs who had heavy home-work assignments during the week-long session.

Congratulations to all our student award winners:

• Robert Petroski: Department Citation Award which is the highest honor given in each engineering department.
• Kelly Jordan: Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor, awarded by The Graduate Council's Advisory Committee for GSI Affairs
• Sara Mattafirri: ANS Graduate Scholarship
• Haruko Murakami: Jane Lewis Fellowship for 2006-7
• Elena Rodriguez-Vieitez: Soroptimist Fellowship for 2006-7
• NE Department Poster Competition winners
  • Max Fratoni and Francesco Ganda
  • Lance Kim
  • Bethany Lyles
  • Haruko Murakami
  • Christine Nguyen
• Jon Dreyer: Department of Homeland Security Fellowship for 2006-7 (renewable)
• Bethany Lyles and Erica Ludlum: 2005 ANS graduate scholarship
• Bethany Lyles, Jay Fahlen and Lance Kim: 2nd place in the STEP White paper competition "A Return to Atoms for Peace: Provision of an Experimental Compact Liquid Metal Fast Reactor to North Korea"

Congratulations to Professor Joonhong Ahn, who's paper has been selected to be one of the top 40 most excellent papers of GLOBAL 2005. The selection of 40 most excellent papers out of 470 papers submitted to GLOBAL 2005 honors and recognizes the authors who made remarkable technical contribution to GLOBAL 2005. The Technical Program Committee of GLOBAL 2005 selected his paper entitled “Environmental Impact of Yucca Mountain Repository”- and recommended it for the award and subsequent publication with the others selected. The paper will be printed in a special issue of the Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, which is the official journal of Atomic Energy Society of Japan.

• “Environmental Impact of Yucca Mountain Repository”. Abstract: Environmental impact of the Yucca Mountain Repository (YMR) has been quantitatively evaluated in terms of the radiotoxicity of transuranic (TRU) and fission-product radionuclides existing in the environment after released from failed packages. Inventory abstraction has been made based on the data published in Final Environmental Impact Statement published by US DOE. Mathematical model and computation code have been developed based on analytical solutions. Environmental impact from the commercial spent nuclear fuel (CSNF) packages is about 90% of the total impact including the contribution from defense waste (DW) packages. Impacts due to isotopes of Cm, Am, Pu and Np, and their decay daughters are dominant, compared with those from fission-product nuclides. Numerical results show that reduction of the TRU nuclides by a factor of 100 makes the impact from CSNF smaller than that from DW.

Congratulations to Professor Donald Olander, who has been selected to hold the James Fife chair in Engineering. This chair is a major honor recognizing Don's stature and scholarly contributions in the field of Nuclear Engineering. Congratulations!

Congratulations to Professor Brian Wirth, who received three major awards:

• the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, given by the Executive Office of the President (PECASE)
  • The Presidential Award is considered the highest honor bestowed by the United States on exceptional scientists and engineers beginning early in their careers. This recognizes Professor Brian Wirth's outstanding accomplishments in his doctoral and postdoctoral work, and more recently as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, and is well deserved.
• the Early Career Scientist and Engineer Award, given by the U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of Defense Programs.
• National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award (2006-2011)

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Lisa Zemelman Wins Spot Award!

Congratulations to Lisa Zemelman for winning the first Spot Award in Nuclear Engineering (NE).  The award was presented to Ms. Zemelman at NE’s Holiday Party in December 2006.  She was nominated for the Award for her extraordinary dedication and effort in preparing NE for the ABET accreditation review in October 2006.

Ms Zemelman deserves the Award.   She has a “can-do attitude and willingness to help, collaborative mindset, and recognition of the need to support her co-workers.”

The Berkeley Campus Spot Award allows supervisors, managers, and other campus individuals to recognize special achievements for non-represented employees as they occur.  The objective of this program is to create role models and communicate the type of noteworthy accomplishments that the campus appreciates. This award lets employees know that someone has noticed their outstanding work.  At the same time, it recognizes and reinforces the behaviors and values that are important at UC Berkeley.

The next Spot Award will be available beginning September 2007.