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students in nuclear engineering lab

At a Glance

2020 ASEE UT NE Rankings

  • #1 in PhD student enrollment
  • #2 in BS student enrollment
  • #2 in total student enrollment
  • #2 in BS degrees granted
  • #3 in federal expenditures per faculty
  • #4 in federal research expenditures

Brief History

  • Department founded in 1957, making it the first Department of Nuclear Engineering in the United States.
  • Produced over 1,400 graduates in the past 60 years.


Faculty and Staff Profile

Faculty

  • 16 tenure/tenure track faculty
    • 3 assistants
    • 5 associate
    • 8 full
    • 3 part-time emeritus
  • 1 open faculty search
  • 2 UT-ORNL Governor’s Chairs
  • 2 Professors of Practice
  • 3 non-UT Joint Faculty
    • 2 ORNL
    • 1 Y-12
  • 1 National Academy of Engineering Member
  • 8 ANS Fellows
  • 12 research faculty, 28 adjunct faculty
  • 9 research scientists, 7 post-doctoral research scholars

Support Staff

  • 8 clerical staff members
  • 2 technical staff members

Student Profile

2020–21 Graduates

  • 81 graduates total
    • 42 BS
    • 24 MS
    • 15 PhD

2021–22 Enrollment

  • 350 total students
    • 198 BS
    • 42 MS
    • 110 PhD

Graduate Student Support

  • 24 UT fellowships (Chancellor, UT top 100, Tickle College)
  • 16 graduate teaching assistantships
  • 96 graduate research assistantships
  • 20 external fellows (NEUP, NNSA, NRC, CIRE, CNEC, NNIS)


New Engineering Complex

The department moved into the new $129M engineering complex in Fall 2021. It supports their groundbreaking research with 23 new nuclear engineering laboratories including shielded rooms for the graphite pile and Approach to Criticality facility along with vaults for a 9MV LINAC and a neutron generator driven Fast Neutron Source. This triples their physical footprint.

Rendering of the new engineering complex

Research

$13 million in expenditures

Research Focus Areas

  • Nuclear Fuels and Materials
  • Nuclear Security
  • Radiological Sciences and Health Physics
  • Nuclear I&C, Reliability, and Safety
  • Nuclear Fusion Technology
  • Nuclear Fuel Cycles
  • Advanced Modeling and Simulation
  • Radiation Detection and Measurement


Additional Facilities and Equipment

  • Parallel Computing through Newton and local Beowulf clusters
  • Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow Measurements Laboratory
  • Data Acquisition and Instrument Characterization Laboratory
  • Prognostics, Reliability, and Control Laboratory
  • Radiochemistry and Nuclear Forensics Laboratory
  • Ion Beam Materials Laboratory
  • Micro-Processing Research Facility
  • UT/ORNL Joint Institute for Advanced Materials
  • 85 MW High Flux Isotope Reactor
  • Spallation Neutron Source
  • Nuclear Safeguards Laboratory
  • Radiochemical Engineering Development Center
  • Low Activation Materials Development & Analysis
  • Center for Radiation Detection Materials and Systems
  • Titan Supercomputer (world’s third most powerful supercomputer)
  • Y-12 National Security Complex
  • Reliability and Maintainability Center
  • Scintillation Materials Research Center
  • Thompson Cancer Survival Center
  • Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors
  • Provision Center for Proton Therapy
  • Institute for Nuclear Security