As a first-generation college student from rural Alachua, Florida, Alex Trimble never imagined he would one day operate a nuclear reactor.
But in 2025, after years of determination, he earned his reactor operator license through the University of Florida’s training reactor (UFTR) program, joining a small, elite group of students trained to safely control one of the few university reactors in the country.
Built in 1959 and operating out of the Nuclear Engineering program in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, the UFTR is one of fewer than 30 reactors still operating in the United States. The college uses the reactor to train students like Trimble in nuclear science and reactor operations, and in lab courses in nuclear engineering, physics, chemistry, geology and environmental engineering.