Otto Harling receives Hatanaka Memorial Award

NSE Professor Otto Harling received the Hatanaka Memorial Award and presented the Hatanaka Memorial Lecture at the 13th Congress of the International Society for Neutron Capture Therapy in Florence, Italy on Nov. 2, 2008.

The first clinical studies of neutron capture therapy were carried out at Brookhaven and at MIT in the 1950s. NSE faculty member Gordon Brownell was involved in those at MIT. The MITR was designed with neutron capture therapy in mind. A medical irradiation was incorporated into the initial design of MITR. More recently, the departmnent has designed and built a new epithermal neutron irradiation facility. Known as the FCB, this facility uses a unique approach not used elsewhere, a fission converter source, and it is considered the best irradiation facility for neutron capture therapy in the world. The first international meeting or congress of what was to become the International Society for Neutron Capture Therapy took place at MIT in 1983.

BETTER TECHNOLOGY: Accelerating new energy technologies

“We have to figure out how to accelerate the introduction of new energy technologies in different sectors,” says Lester, who has led studies of national and regional productivity, competitiveness, and innovation for governments and industrial groups around the world. “The common debate is about which technology is better, but what we have paid less attention to as a country is the ways in which new technologies find their way into the marketplace.” Read full interview with Prof. Lester in Spectrum >>

Nanofluids group receive Best Paper award at MNHTI-08 Conference

The article, "Experimental Study of Flow Critical Heat Flux in Low Concentration Water-Based Nanofluids," written by Sung Joong Kim, Tom McKrell, Jacopo Buongiorno and Lin-wen Hu was selected for the Best Paper Award at the 1st ASME Micro/Nanoscale Heat Transfer International Conference, held January 6-9, 2008 in Tainan, Taiwan.

Jacopo Buongiorno receives SOE's Junior Bose Award

Congratulations to NSE Professor Jacopo Buongiorno who received the 2007 Junior Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching. The Bose Award was established in 1995 to complement the original Bose Award by recognizing excellent contributions from the junior faculty of the School of Engineering.

Bilge Yildiz joins NSE faculty

Newly appointed Assistant Professor Bilge Yildiz received her Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from MIT in 2002. Prior to joining the NSE faculty, she worked at Argonne National Laboratory for 3 years. Professor Yıldız’ research focuses on understanding the interplay between structure, properties, and performance in electrochemically active material interfaces in nuclear technologies. Further information is available on her website.

ANS 2007 Annual Meeting

NSE hosted two events at the recently-concluded ANS Annual Meeting, held this year in Boston: A special symposium focused on the nuclear fuel cycle, dedicated to the memory of Manson Benedict and chaired by MIT Professor Emeritus Neil Todreas, and reception and dinner for over a hundred NSE alumni, faculty, spouses and guests. Visit the photo gallery >>

Special Symposium. Neil Todreas, Honorary Chairman of this year's ANS Annual Meeting, hosted a special symposium on June 26 in remembrance of Manson Benedict, founder and first Head of the NSE department.

The symposium focused on the nuclear fuel cycle, and featured three speakers:

1. Dr. Frank O. Carre (SM, '75), Program Director at Comm a L'Energie Atomique:
   "The Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems’ Sustainability and Transition from LWRs" (pdf)
2. Charles W. Forsberg, Oak Ridge National Laboratory:
   "Alpha and Omega: Which Direction for the Fuel Cycle?" (pdf)
   (Note: Dr. Forsberg was a scheduled speaker at the symposium but was unable to attend; the attached pdf is the presentation he had prepared for his talk.)
3. Dr. Alan S. Hanson, Executive Vice President of AREVA:
   "Near-term Options for Treatmentand Recyle" (pdf)
4. Mujid Kazimi, NSE Professor and Director of the MIT Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems: "Actinide Burning in Reactors:Options and Outcomes (pdf)"

NSE Prof Andy Kadak on 60 Minutes

As part of 60 Minutes feature story on a renaissance in nuclear energy, NSE Professor Andy Kadak was interviewed on Pebble Bed reactors and why the technology is meltdown proof. Watch the video and visit the 60 Minutes site for full coverage of their nuclear report.

Jacopo Buongiorno appointed to Soderberg Professorship

NSE Assistant Professor Jacopo Buongiorno has been appointed as the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering for a three year term, effective July 1.

Professor Buongiorno’s research focuses on the investigation of fundamental transport phenomena in colloidal suspensions of nanoparticles (known as nanofluids), with the goal of exploring their applications in such nuclear systems as fission reactors, accelerator targets and fusion reactors. He is the Director of Center for Nanofluids Technology at MIT.

The Soderberg Professorship was established by MIT in 1975 in honor of Soderberg's 80th birthday. Soderberg, who taught at MIT from 1938-1960, is noted for his pioneering work in the design and development of turbine engines.

Professor Sow-Hsin Chen and co-authors receive PNAS honor for article of "outstanding scientific excellence and originality"

The Cozzarelli Prize, named after former Editor-in-Chief who encouraged researchers to "push the envelope of discovery," will be presented to Professor Chen at the National Academy of Sciences Award Ceremony on April 29, in recognition of his 2006 article, "The violation of the Stokes–Einstein relation in supercooled water (S-H, Chen, F. Mallamace, C-Y. Mou, M. Broccio, C. Corsaro, A. Faraone, and L. Liu).

NSE alum JU LI honored as "2007 Young Innovator Under 35" by Tech Review

NSE alumn Ju Li (PhD, 2000) has been honored as one of Tech Review's "2007 Young Innovators Under 35." Currently an assistant professor at Ohio State University, Ju Li was a member of Professor Sidney Yip's research group from 1994 to 2001, first as a graduate student, then as a Postdoctoral Associate and Research Scientist. 

Professor Li's research provides molecular-level insights into how chemical bonds in materials can break or reform under stress.

Says Professor Yip, "Ju Li's work is enabling the design of new materials based on fundamental principles and predictive modeling, as well as the performance optimization of existing materials.  Given the materials-centric nature of much of the science and technology of our society, the impact of his research is far reaching.

The Tech Review award joins a growing list of major awards for Ju Li, including the Presidential Early Career Award in 2005 and the Outstanding Young Investigator by the Materials Research Society in 2006.

In September, MIT will host the 2007 Emerging Technologies Conference, and will honor the Tech Review winners in a series of ‘Meet the TR35' presentations and receptions. A full list of honorees is available online at Technology Review.