UF Nuclear Forensics_feature-image

UF-led Group Develops New Tools to Track Illicit Nuclear Materials

December 12, 2023

A visibly nervous man is stopped at a border crossing in eastern Europe. Authorities find a glass tube filled with black powder inside a heavy lead container in his trunk. Geiger counters go crazy. The powder is radioactive. North Korea conducts a nuclear test, and within hours, U.S. “sniffer” planes scramble to gather air samples […]

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Doug Spearot, Ph.D., Assel Aitkaliyeva, Ph.D.

UF Engineering Collaboration Aims to Add Decades of Safe, Clean Energy Production to U.S. Nuclear Reactors

July 27, 2022

Engineers from UF’s Department of Materials Science & Engineering (MSE) and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) are collaborating on research investigating neutron irradiation-induced embrittlement in nuclear reactor pressure vessels. Douglas Spearot, Ph.D., professor of MAE and principal investigator, and Assel Aitkaliyeva, Ph.D., associate professor of MSE, are part of the $800,000 study. […]

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UF MSE-NE

Jacob DeWitte, Ph.D., Recognized with 2021 Distinguished Early Career Alumni Award

July 7, 2021

  Our 2021 Distinguished Early Career Alumni Award winner is Jacob DeWitte, Ph.D., a nuclear reactor developer commercializing next-generation fission power systems. Dr. DeWitte is a co-Founder and the CEO of Oklo, Inc., a Sunnyvale, California-based company developing and building small nuclear reactors. Dr. DeWitte is originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and completed his undergraduate […]

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Dr. Kyle C. Hartig

Hartig Leads UF Team in Groundbreaking Multidisciplinary Research Alliance

September 10, 2020

Kyle Hartig, Ph.D., an assistant professor of nuclear engineering in the UF Department of Materials Science & Engineering (MSE), will lead a research team as part of the newly formed Interaction of Ionizing Radiation with Matter – University Research Alliance (IIRM-URA). The alliance is funded by a $51.5 million Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) award. […]

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Emily Kwapis, Ph.D. candidate

Nuclear Engineering Ph.D. Student Emily Kwapis Awarded SMART Fellowship

May 6, 2020

Emily Kwapis, a Nuclear Engineering Ph.D. student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), has been awarded a fellowship from the Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship-for-Service Program. Emily graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan with a B.S.E. in Nuclear Engineering with a minor in Electrical Engineering. She […]

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Kaylee Cunningham

Kaylee Cunningham Looks Forward to a Bright Future in Nuclear Engineering

April 9, 2020

Kaylee Cunningham, a sophomore Nuclear Engineering major, was awarded first place honors for her poster entry at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Intern Poster Session last summer. For our spring Student Spotlight, Cunningham shares her experience with early college success and what she hopes to accomplish in the world of nuclear engineering. Why did you […]

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