NPRE at Illinois will welcome to campus representatives from six industries and agencies to interact with students and faculty during the 2013 Interchange event on Friday, October 18. Interchange, now in its fifth year, gives students a chance to network with the guests to become more familiar with industries, national laboratories and regulatory agencies that focus on nuclear power, plasma engineering, and radiological technologies. The event also serves to acquaint the company and agency representatives with students available for internships and/or permanent positions, and to learn more about NPRE’s faculty and programs. NPRE sponsors Interchange with the help of the American Nuclear Society student chapter.
Representatives of these industries – Enercon Services, Inc., Exelon Corp., GE Healthcare, Sargent & Lundy LLC, and View, Inc. – as well Argonne National Laboratory will meet with students in small group sessions in the morning and afternoon, and will present a panel discussion later in the afternoon during 2013 Interchange:
Managed by the U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne is a multidisciplinary science and engineering research center, where “dream teams” of world-class researchers work alongside experts from industry, academia and other government laboratories to address vital national challenges in clean energy, environment, technology and national security. The lab strives to discover new ways to develop energy innovations through science, create novel materials molecule-by-molecule, and gain a deeper understanding of our planet, our climate and the cosmos. Argonne employs 3,456 individuals, including 1,250 scientists and engineers, 303 postdoctoral scholars, and 650 graduate and undergraduate students.
Argonne Representative – Michael D. Kaminski, Nuclear Forensics and Nanoscale Engineering Group Leader, Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division
Mike holds three degrees from NPRE: BS 95, MS 96, and PhD 98, and is an adjunct associate professor in the Department. At Argonne, Mike has been responsible for:
- Nuclear waste minimization and stabilization technology
- Development of advanced nuclear fuel cycle radioactive waste
- Development of technologies for decontamination of nuclear facilities and urban centers following radionuclide release
- Development of medical treatment technologies based on magnetic nanospheres.
- Developing a novel radioisotope sensor based on microseparations and microfluidic platforms for nuclear forensics and medical triage
Enercon Services, Inc. (ENERCON), founded in 1983, is an engineering, environmental, technical and management services firm providing a broad range of professional services to private, public and government sector clients throughout the United States. With 24 offices in the U.S., one international office, and over 1,200 professional in a broad range of disciplines, Enercon has substantial capabilities that help its clients to address both today's and tomorrow's problems. Enercon is an employee-owned company whose reputation for innovation, diligence, and commitment has led to growth and success for the company and its clients.
ENERCON representative – Brian Kleinfeldt, Engineer IV, Power Generation Services, Naperville, Illinois office
Brian graduated from NPRE with a BS in 2010 and an MS in 2012. Since starting at Enercon in May of 2012, Brian has supported projects for Exelon Generation and Next Era Energy. These projects have included preparing calculations and engineering change packages in addition to field engineering support and inspections at Byron Nuclear Power Station and the Duane Arnold Energy Center.
Exelon Corporation is the nation's leading competitive energy provider, with approximately $23.5 billion in annual revenues. The Exelon family of companies participates in every stage of the energy business, from generation to competitive energy sales to transmission to delivery. Headquartered in Chicago, Exelon has operations and business activities in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. The company is one of the largest competitive U.S. power generators, with approximately 34,700 megawatts of owned capacity comprising one of the nation’s cleanest and lowest-cost power generation fleets.
Its Constellation business unit provides energy products and services to approximately 100,000 business and public sector customers and approximately 1 million residential customers. Exelon’s utilities deliver electricity and natural gas to more than 6.6 million customers in central Maryland (BGE), northern Illinois (ComEd) and southeastern Pennsylvania (PECO).
Exelon representative – Edward A. McVey, Manager, Reactor Engineering Oversight and Emergent Issues
Ed earned a BS in NPRE in 1983 and has made his career at Exelon. Currently, he manages five individuals who provide governance and oversight of Reactor Engineering activities and training for the Exelon Fleet. In addition, his group provides support for various Nuclear Fuels emergent issues related to core design and operation.
Founded in 1878 by Thomas Edison, GE is the only company from the original 1896 Dow Jones index still listed today, and is rated AA+ with a stable outlook by the S&P. In more than 150 global locations, GE employs 290,000 pepole world-wide, including 3,000 scientists and technologists in five global research facilities. With headquarters in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of GE, employing more than 53,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. GE Healthcare's divisions are Healthcare Systems, IT, Medical Diagnostics, Surgery, Life Sciences and Performance Solutions.
GE Healthcare representative – Scott D. Wollenweber, Principal Engineer, Positron Emission Tomography Clinical Science
Scott earned a BS in Engineering Physics in 1990 from Illinois, and a PhD in Engineering Physics in 1996 from the University of Iowa. Scott has been issued 20 patents and has another 16 under review. He has served as a reviewer for the National Institutes of Health, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, The American Association of Physicists in Medicine and the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. He has presented numerous invited lectures and has produced 15 peer-reviewed articles and 25 conference presentations. His current projects in positron emission tomography are:
- Regularized PET image reconstruction – image quality measurement and assessment
- PET phantom construction and data analysis methods – hot/cold rod phantoms
- Measurement and correction for patient respiratory motion
- MRI-based PET attenuation correction
For more than 122 years, Sargent & Lundy has provided comprehensive consulting, engineering, design, and analysis for electric power generation and power delivery projects worldwide. With a large, highly experienced staff solely dedicated to the energy business, Sargent & Lundy has the ability and know-how to effectively execute the largest projects as well as highly specialized tasks. Nuclear power has been a primary focus of the company’s business since 1954. Through the years, S&L has been continuously involved in nuclear power, designing successive generations of new stations and supporting operating plants on an on-going basis. The company’s recent experience includes extensive engineering, design, analysis, and project services for PWR, BWR, and CANDU nuclear power station owners.
Sargent & Lundy representative – Kenneth J. Green, Vice President, Project Director
Ken, who earned a BS in 1971 in Mechanical Engineering at Illinois and a master’s in mechanical engineering in 1974 from Old Dominion University. He has been with S&L for over 35 years in various positions, almost all in nuclear plant design. In addition to project work, he has held positions of Department Manager for Mechanical Engineering and Systems Engineering. He has also been involved with quality program development and implementation of deliverable focused engineering processes. Ken has been involved with system design, safety analysis and licensing of new nuclear units in the United States and internationally and with various modification and backfit work for operating nuclear units. Ken also has been the Project Director for a major nuclear laboratory facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
View Inc. is the pioneer in large-scale architectural dynamic glass. The company designs, manufactures, and sells a new generation of architectural dynamic glass that intelligently adjusts in response to external conditions and user preferences, enabling unparalleled control over the amount of light and heat that enters a building.
View Dynamic Glass provides continuously unobstructed views without heat or glare, creating a new level of occupant comfort and natural light while dramatically reducing building energy consumption. It also provides unprecedented architectural design freedom, eliminating blinds and shading structures and enabling building designs with larger glass areas. View is headquartered in Milpitas, California, with state-of-the-art high-volume manufacturing facilities in Olive Branch, Mississippi.
View Inc. representative – Martin N. Neumann, Technology Manager
Martin earned three degrees in NPRE: BS in 1999, MS in 2005, PhD in 2007. He oversees all technology aspects of production for View's manufacturing facility in Mississippi.