Posted: Friday, March 30, 2007 12:00 am
OSU hosts 2007 American Nuclear Society Student Conference
By Mary Ann Albright
Gazette-Times reporter
Oregon State University graduate students Tony Elliott and Brian Collins have attended conferences for nuclear engineering students before, but this is their first time organizing such an event.
OSU is hosting the 2007 American Nuclear Society Student Conference this week, bringing together between 300 and 350 nuclear engineering students, faculty and professionals from across the nation.
"We truly are the center of the nuclear-engineering universe for the weekend," said Collins, who along with Elliott is working toward a master's degree in nuclear engineering at OSU. Both received their undergraduate training at OSU as well.
The conference began Thursday with registration, tours of OSU's Radiation Center, including a look at the nuclear reactor on campus, and a kick-off dinner. Events conclude Saturday evening.
This year's theme is "Nuclear Technologies Around the World: Solving Tomorrow's Problems Today." Participants will explore the potential for nuclear technology to meet the world's increasing demand for energy.
Beginning today and continuing Saturday, students will offer 15-minute technical presentations and take questions from peers about their areas of expertise. Presentations deemed the best will be recognized at a banquet Saturday night, and winners will receive pen sets.
Among those leading a session is Collins, who also organized registration and presentations for the conference.
Collins's presentation will focus on condensation in steam generator u-tubes, which transfer heat to create steam that in turn generates power.
Other presenters include Jiani Wang, also a graduate student in nuclear engineering at OSU. Her research focuses on heat transfers in power providers of space explorers such as the Mars rovers.
The conference is entirely run by students. Organizers such as Collins and Elliott, conference chairman, sought funding from private corporations and government agencies, including the American Nuclear Society, the U.S. Department of Energy and AREVA NP, a company that designs and constructs nuclear-power plants.
OSU's American Nuclear Society Student Chapter has been planning this year's conference since last spring, after OSU learned it was awarded hosting rights for the 2007 event. Last year's conference was held at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.
This year, students from colleges and universities including OSU, Purdue, the University of California, Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are giving presentations on everything from thermal hydraulics to radiation detection to nuclear fusion.
Guest speakers will include Peter Lyons, commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; John Gutteridge, director of university reactor fuel assistance and support in the Office of Nuclear Energy within the U.S. Department of Energy; and Harold Finley McFarlane, president of the American Nuclear Society.
The conference, which takes place primarily in the Memorial Union, includes a career fair, and some companies will be conducting interviews on site.
It's a great networking opportunity, Collins and Elliott said.
And, in fact, now is a good time to be entering the work force as a nuclear engineer, according to Brian Woods, assistant professor of nuclear engineering and faculty advisor for the conference.
"About 50 percent of current nuclear engineers will be retiring in five to 10 years," he said. "It's quite a gray work force, so there are a lot of job opportunities for students graduating soon."
Nuclear engineering is important now more than ever as people become more concerned about global warming, Woods said. Nuclear energy, he said, doesn't emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide or sulfur dioxides into the atmosphere.
Nuclear engineering can be applied to many different fields, said Jangyong Huh, a doctoral student from the University of Florida in town for the conference.
He is primarily interested in calculating and analyzing radiation, which can be found everywhere from hospitals to power plants to the air.
Huh isn't presenting at the conference, but he's eager to see what other students have to say.
"I want to meet the other students and learn what other students are doing," he said. "Sometimes that gives me a motivation to study hard. I want to exchange information."
Mary Ann Albright covers higher education. She can be reached at maryann.albright@lee.net or 758-9518.
On the net
More information about the 2007 American Nuclear Society Student Conference is available online at http://groups.engr.oregonstate.edu/ans/conference.htm