The NPRE Story

Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering

The NPRE Story

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is in its second century of operation and is recognized as a national center of excellence in education. The College of Engineering, founded in 1868, has grown and prospered with the University, establishing itself as a productive center of engineering research and education.

The Department of Nuclear Engineering was established in 1958 as an inter-disciplinary program and was granted departmental status in 1986. Its name was changed to the Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering in 1999 to reflect the three paths typically followed by its students, and the wide variety of courses available to them. The change was approved by the Illinois Board of Higher Education at its June 15, 1999 Board meeting.

"The name change has been in the works for a long time," said James Stubbins, department head. "The purpose of this name change is twofold: first, to emphasize that the nuclear engineering discipline, as it is taught at the University of Illinois, is not just about commercial nuclear power, and, second, to better reflect the breadth of the undergraduate curriculum, the graduate program, and the diversity of the faculty.

"Over the last few years, the faculty has developed a modified undergraduate curriculum," Stubbins continued. "The primary purpose of the revised curriculum is to explicitly include two new sub-fields or paths of study: Radiological, Medical and Instrumentation Applications, and Plasmas and Fusion Science and Engineering. The third, the traditional Reactor Power, Safety and the Environment sub-field, is also an option. The explicit incorporation of the new sub-fields has been performed to better prepare our undergraduate students for employment in radiation-related sectors of the U.S. job market, and to better reflect the expanding opportunities in the evolving nuclear engineering discipline in line with faculty research interests."