Recognizing his contributions to nuclear science engineering education, the American Nuclear Society has honored James F. Stubbins, Donald Biggar Willett Professor in the College of Engineering, with the 2018 Arthur Holly Compton Award.
A faculty member in Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering the past 38 years, Stubbins is a skilled professional in the classroom. Students consistently rank his courses as excellent.
Stubbins draws upon his many years of experience working with industry leaders, policy makers and other educators to personalize for his students the major lessons that emerge from the discipline. He is technically masterful, specializing in nuclear materials, and has graduated a large number of master’s and PhD students who have gone on to establish their own distinguished careers. Two of his past students are members of the National Academy of Engineering.
Stubbins’ contributions reach far beyond the boundaries of the classroom. His educational efforts and leadership have had national and international impact.
He helped initiate and has been the lead instructor on a long and fruitful cooperation that exchanges students from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Pisa in Italy. As NPRE Department Head for 18 years until August 2017, Stubbins enthusiastically supported establishing a cooperative agreement with the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in which NPRE faculty and students have traveled to Sweden to learn about the country’s high level nuclear waste storage program. He also shepherded an exchange of Jordanian students to Illinois to help develop the nuclear engineering program at the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST).
Heading the Illinois program, Stubbins joined other university nuclear engineering department heads in annual trips to Capitol Hill to build awareness of and support for nuclear engineering science. When a downtrend in the nuclear power industry led to smaller enrollments nationwide, Stubbins worked with utility giant Exelon Corp. to create scholarships in NPRE to attract more students. Undergraduate enrollment rose to a record high during his tenure as department head.
Also during his tenure, Stubbins doubled the size of the NPRE faculty to 16 tenure-track members. His strategic recruitment to attract experts in NPRE’s three tracks drew faculty specializing in risk analysis and assessment; nuclear power computations, safety, physics, modeling and experimentation; plasma physics with applications for semiconductor processing, biomedical techniques and fusion energy; and radiological instrumentation and detection.
Shortly after the Fukushima, Japan, nuclear disaster occurred in 2011, Stubbins recognized the need to respond to public concern and authorized a special campus-wide seminar that drew over 300 individuals. He also became the university’s go-to expert for the media in helping the public understand what the disaster meant for nuclear reactors and nuclear safety. His accessibility to the media and thorough explanation of events led the university to recognize him with that year’s Media Relations Award.
Stubbins’ leadership in advancing nuclear technology became highly visible and effective following the special informational forum, “Nuclear Power: What it means in Illinois,” held in Chicago in October 2016. Working with others, Stubbins led the efforts to organize the daylong forum at which state legislators were invited to learn about the consequences of the proposed closures of nuclear power plants in the Quad Cities and Clinton, Illinois. The informative event helped lawmakers decide to pass legislation to retain the plants’ viability.
Stubbins’ contributions to nuclear engineering education had been recognized previously with the 2010 American Society for Engineering Education Glenn Murphy Award.
Learn more about NPRE by checking out our YouTube videos!