First year faculty member Prof. Clair Sullivan and veteran Prof. Rizwan Uddin are sharing the designation as 2013 NPRE Teacher of the Year. Records Officer Becky Meline was recognized for her work in advising students.
Members of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) student chapter chose the Teachers of the Year.
Sullivan, who began with NPRE in 2012, taught NPRE 451 (Laboratory) both the Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 semesters. The course covers radiation detection and instrumentation, radiation dosimetry and shielding, basic measurements in nuclear engineering, engineering applications, and micro computer data acquisition and experimental control.
Sullivan advised four NPRE undergraduates in their presentation that won the Best Undergraduate Paper Award at the 2013 ANS student conference in April in Boston. The students, Kathleen Weichman; Kristin Schoemaker; Benjamin Russell; and Jaspreet Rehal, presented “SEE RADS Platform: Social, Every Day, and Emergency Radiation Detection System.”
Uddin has stretched his streak of winning the Teacher of the Year honor to nine years in a row. Over the past decade Uddin also consistently has been named to the List of Teachers Ranked Excellent by their Students. (Also included on that list in Fall 2012 were Profs. Roy Axford, Magdi Ragheb, and David Ruzic.)
With NPRE Department Head Jim Stubbins, Uddin co-taught NPRE 100, Orientation to NPRE, and NPRE 201, Energy Systems, during the Fall 2012 semester. The latter class is a collaborative effort between NPRE and the University of Pisa, Italy, in which Illinois students travel to Italy in the summer for several weeks, and Italian students come to the Urbana campus for several weeks in the fall.
Also last fall, Uddin taught NPRE 448, Nuclear Systems Engineering and Design, and NPRE 501, Fundamentals of Nuclear Engineering.
NPRE 448 examines engineering principles underlying nuclear systems designed with an emphasis on nuclear power reactors; materials for nuclear systems; easy generation and removal in single- and two-phase flows; and reactor and component control systems and nuclear fuel reloading patterns.
NPRE 501 looks at the background for advanced work in nuclear engineering; problems in materials, heat transfer, and fluid flow; and special emphasis on basic ideas and the mathematical similarity of problems in heat transfer, fluid flow, and diffusion.
This past spring, Uddin taught NPRE 455, Neutron Diffusion & Transport. The course examines neutron migration, neutron slowing down and thermalization; neutron continuity equation, multigroup diffusion theory, homogeneous and heterogeneous medium, thermal and fast assemblies; numerical methods for multigroup diffusion equations; reactor dynamics perturbation theory; reactivity coefficients; and introductory transport theory.
Meline, who joined NPRE in 2000, advises all NPRE incoming freshmen and transfer students on course registration and works. She was recognized with the advising award in 2012 and 2010 as well. The top 10 percent of engineering advisors are chosen for the Engineering Council’s advising award, recognizing the important role that advisors play in the academic planning process of every engineering student on campus. Students nominate the candidates.