The Illinois American Nuclear Society student chapter has chosen NPRE Adjunct Prof. William R. Roy for the 2018 Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award.
Retired in 2012 as a senior geochemist with the Illinois State Geological Survey on the University of Illinois Urbana campus, Roy has been an NPRE affiliate faculty member since 2004 and became an adjunct professor for the department in 2007. He has been included on the List of Teachers Ranked Excellent by Their Students every year since he began teaching for NPRE.
“I was very humbled by this award,” Roy said. “It was wonderful that it came from the students. Thank you! Thank you! I plan to teach for NPRE for a long time! See you in class!”
Roy’s research interests at the Geological Survey included radioactive waste management. That expertise served students in NPRE and other units at Illinois well as Roy has dedicated himself to developing courses and extracurricular activities that have enriched the students’ educational experiences.
For the past four summers, Roy has taught an intense, two-week course for the Royal Institute of Technology on the geological storage of spent nuclear fuel. Each of the summers, four to seven Illinois students have joined a larger group of students from all over the world to enroll in the course and tour the storage facilities. The international group of students ranked Roy as the best lecturer among the 28 experts who traveled from around the world to contribute to the two-week course.
To prepare Illinois students for the trip and provide them academic credit, Roy developed the course, NPRE 498 – Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage in Bedrock. The course has been extremely well-received.
Students also have responded positively to Roy’s course, NPRE 442 – Radioactive Waste Management, which he has taught every spring semester since 2008. Little was prepared for Roy when he started teaching 442. He has since established for the course 28 powerpoint lectures, 10 problem sets and a wiki website.
He stays abreast of new developments in the field, regularly sharing with his students YouTube content that he finds relevant. He also is in the process of writing a book on the subject and has shared those chapters with his students.
Furthermore, Roy has taught NPRE/GLBL 481 – Writing on Technology and Security, for which he also created a wiki website.
To see more photos from the 2018 Honors Banquet, go to NPRE's Facebook page!
Learn more about NPRE by checking out our YouTube videos!