An interesting finding on using US News and World Report for University Rankings.

[NNadir]

My feeling is that most of us here at DU, for better or worse, are older people. It would seem the young folks are somewhere else.

Probably not many of us here are involved in college searches anymore, but if someone is or will be, well...

I was a late onset father, so my youngest son only graduated from his university last December, as a materials science engineer, is finishing up a one year masters program offered under an academic scholarship and is looking to enter a Ph.D. program in Nuclear Engineering, a topic I've discussed with him in some detail over his lifetime.

He's really crunched with coursework, research, gathering recommendations, etc., so I offered to survey Nuclear Engineering faculties at well know nuclear engineering schools to point to research groups that might offer innovative approaches that we've discussed over the years in nuclear engineering, since it is a discipline that will be important to saving what is left to save from climate change, to give him a kind of short hand in the form of a spreadsheet with links to each professor's page, and my brief comments, with the really innovative stuff (at least in my opinion) in red.

Of course, I immediately went to the MIT site - he'll apply there - and to UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan, Ann Ann Arbor, NC State, as well as the University of Tennessee, because my son loved his internship at Oak Ridge National Lab. (UT is a very good nuclear engineering school because of its proximity to that great National Laboratory.) The faculties at these institutions all feature members who are on the cutting edge of nuclear engineering, and it would be a thrill, I think, to work with many of these fine engineering scientists in every department on advanced reactor design.

Although Texas A&M is also known as a very good nuclear engineering school, I'm not willing to participate in sending my son to a very dangerous place where guns are not regulated and women are chattel.

To see if I missed anything I googled "Best Nuclear Engineering Graduate Schools" and came across the US News and World Report Rankings.

#6 is Georgia Tech in these rankings, so I went to the faculty page there. It's huge, because they list all of the technical support people, instrument makers, coordinators, etc, and adjunct faculty - who don't train graduate students. There are some very cool materials scientists listed in the department, and fine scientists in the area of radiation biology, and mechanical prosthetic devices, fluid dynamics, robotics, computer modeling etc. Some of these topics are relevant to nuclear engineering, but not really focused on it. However, in opening twenty or so faculty pages, I found no one who actually is involved in the engineering of nuclear reactors.

US News and World Report ranks a department notably short on nuclear engineering faculty as the #6 nuclear engineering school in the country.

Um...um...um...

You can't believe everything you read.

We actually have a crisis in Nuclear Engineering Education and staffing in this country, and if we are to participate in saving the world from itself, it's definitely something we need to remedy.

[rickford66]

1. My son barely got out of high school

He's a union painter now. I'm proud of him also.

[NNadir]

2. As you should be.

Loving one's children and respecting their work is a critical role of parenting.

[Hoyt]

3. True, you can't believe everything you read. --Tech grad.

[Shermann]

4. It appears it was based on a survey

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/nuclear-engineering-rankings

So a list like this with that methodology should just be a starting point.

Before one actually invests all that time and money, they should take a deeper dive into these programs like you did.

[NNadir]

5. Yeah, I understand that. Looking at the methodology, can see how this error took place.

Georgia Tech has a department that they call a "nuclear engineering" program and a web site for it, and professors there grant degrees, get grants, and so on, but it is not, from what I can tell, a true nuclear engineering department. However by calling themselves one, they can go up in rankings using the methodology described by the US News website.

Every nuclear engineering department features some faculty that is not really involved directly in reactor engineering, but nonetheless important to the topic, for instance, fluid dynamics, heat transfer, two phase flows, etc. and certainly materials science, which is what my son's undergraduate degree and Masters degree will be.

Georgia Tech does have some people like this, but they lack anyone involved in reactor design, advanced reactors, even fusion, from what I can tell. I'm not going to waste a lot of my time or my son's time finding one or two people who may be doing so.

The departments I've gone through already have many engineer/scientists who are doing exciting work. Many of the more interesting engineer/scientists working on reactor design started with physics or materials science degrees and switched to nuclear for their Ph.Ds.

My son will have a gap semester during which I will loan him or give him a number of nuclear engineering texts I own. I really like U Mich Ann Arbor because they explicitly require their Ph.D. students to take graduate level math courses. I told my son that.

[Shermann]

6. The real opportunities are probably in China

I recall TerraPower was going to build a new type of breeder reactor there, and Trump blocked it. I haven't heard about that restriction since, it really should be lifted. It doesn't seem ethical to not pursue this technology and at the same time disrupt other countries from pursuing it.

[NNadir]

7. The American departments I've scanned have lots of Chinese faculty, often out of Tsinghua, at...

...least for their undergraduate and sometimes Master's degrees.

This said, we do have an excellent core here for innovative development; including our Chinese immigrant professors, and in fact, professors from all around the world who have blessed us by bringing their expertise here.

China is indeed, becoming a very innovative country with nuclear design and the commercial practice of nuclear energy. As things stand they have a chance, despite all the criticism they face, of actually going carbon free. We, by contrast, have no program that will work as yet. But things can change, which is why I'm so proud of my son joining in the fight.

We also have a treasure trove of ancient experience; many of the ideas we abandoned are being dusted off. The most famous of these is the MSR, Flibe based, out of Oak Ridge.

I've learned a tremendous amount reading very old papers and reports.

I've lost enthusiasm for molten salt reactors in which the fuel is molten salt, but as heat transfer tools, in many ways they're outstanding, and do not want anything to do with beryllium based coolants, but that said, many of these departments are running with the basic idea in new and exciting ways.

The Terrapower reactor is OK, inasmuch as it's a breed and burn, but I'm personally not fond of liquid sodium coolants. They're traditional, but in many cases, problematic. There are, I think, much better options. Too many "breed and burn" reactors include sodium coolants.

I like liquid metals, but hardly in the way most people think about them. I've shared this with my son.

The worst nuclear reactor is, however, superior to any dangerous fossil fuel reactor, including those powered by the unclean fuel dangerous natural gas.

My son, has, by the way, taught himself a reading and moderate speaking knowledge of Chinese.

[smirkymonkey]

8. My brother has his PhD in Nuclear Engineering from MIT and he is currently working for a company

that is quite established doing nuclear remdiation, which is what he has been doing for most of his career. IM me if you would like his email so that your son can connect w/ him about the MIT program (not sure what his doctoral thesis was on) and his the work he is doing now.

I am heading out in a few minutes to meet up w/ a friend and will be back after dinner time but will get back to you later this evening or by tomorrow at the latest.

[NNadir]

9. Thanks. Maybe we can touch base next week. I am going to a conference most of this week...

...and need to leave soon.