My name is Leigh Winfrey. I'm an associate professor of nuclear engineering in Penn
State's College of Engineering. Nuclear engineering applies the principles of
radiation science and nuclear physics in areas such as nuclear energy, medicine
safeguards, safety, detection, radio chemistry, the plasma Sciences, and more.
Nuclear engineering students learn how to combine the fundamentals of
mathematics, chemistry, physics, computer programming, and engineering sciences and
apply that to the theory, practice, and experimentation of such things as
nuclear power generation. Nuclear engineers not only work in electricity
generation but they also have careers related to treating disease, safeguarding
food supplies, nuclear forensics, operating nuclear energy systems,
developing regulations to ensure safety, and facilitating exploration among
others. Penn State nuclear engineering alumni service and maintain the systems
essential to our everyday lives from nuclear power plants to industries that
use radiation. Nuclear engineers are helping to use nuclear energy for
sustainability and to address climate changes as a carbon-free energy source.
Many go on to graduate school after which they work in academia, industry, or
at research laboratories. Penn State's Ken and Mary Alice Linguist department
of nuclear engineering houses the Breazeale Nuclear Reactor, the longest operating
licensed research reactor in the country. Faculty and students alike use this
reactor to conduct research that propels the field forward.
Nuclear currently provides a significant portion of power that is clean, carbon
free, and with a relatively low waste footprint, and I think in the future as
we look to get off of fossil fuels and bridge the gap to new technologies, I
think nuclear is going to have to play a huge role in that. What I love about
being a nuclear engineer is just the opportunity to interact with people to
solve problems and to really work in a global context. The nuclear engineering
field is growing pretty rapidly. It used to only be a Power Engineering field but
now we have a lot of ties in the medicine, materials, labs, and other places,
even propulsion, as the space industry starts to come back. I kind of knew I
always wanted to be in STEM. I saw The Incredible Hulk,
got hooked, saw Iron Man and Iron Man became my favorite superhero and I did a
little bit of research and found out that his arc reactor that powers his
suit was basically a nuclear reactor so I was like I want to build the Iron Man
suit. I'm gonna become a nuclear engineer and here I am. One of the
aspects I love most about being a nuclear engineer here at Penn State is
our class sizes are typically smaller than most larger engineer classes so you
really get to know everyone in your major on a one-to-one basis and you make
all these meaningful connections with the people around you. There are a lot of
research for undergrads in nuclear engineering so if you talk to your
professor and you hand in your resume, they would more likely to accept you
doing your research. As a nuclear engineering student you can actually
have the opportunity to work part-time at the reactor on campus. You can become
an auxilary operator so you can help prepare samples, load them into the
different test tubes, help move the reactor across the pool, rotate it. It's a
really great experience. You can also become a reactor operator there so you
can actually see all this stuff you learn in your class being applied to the
reactor as you control it and move all the different control rods. One of the
things that we're trying to figure out is how to prolong the life of plants in
the United States; what kind of new fuel products to use in the industry so that
we can actually get better efficiency and frankly we're looking to really
shrink the size of the reactors. You know, one of the big things that we're working
on are what we call SMRs or small modular reactors. The small modular
reactor allows us to build reactors at a fraction of the cost of a traditional
reactor and still deliver safe clean and reliable energy. Me personally I've
always had a passion to leave the world a better place and I can't think of a
more effective way than finding a way to deliver clean safe reliable energy to
countries and other places, to raise the standard of living to something that we
in the United States take for granted. We all as engineers kind of strive to make
the world better in some way. Being a nuclear engineer specifically climate
change is a big thing and I think nuclear energy, it's gonna be a big part
in combating climate change. I'm passionate about nuclear engineering and
being a nuclear engineer because I do think we have
the opportunity to basically take and look at matter at the atomic level and
to me I think we can do anything with that.