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NEW MEXICO Opportunities in Nuclear Engineering (NMONE)
New Mexico's Nuclear Engineering Fellowship Program funded by DOE Grant (2001 - 2003)
Faculty advisor and PI: Regents' Professor Mohamed S. El-Genk
Progress Report - 2007
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The year of 2007 has been another very successful year for New Mexico One (NMONE) fellowship program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. We continued recruiting potential students into our nuclear engineering program at the University of New Mexico (UNM). This effort has included the dissemination of information on the fellowship program to various student organizations, through the freshman-engineering program within the School of Engineering and through our sister institution, the Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) in Albuquerque, NM. At CNM we have addressing potential students regularly each semester on the advantages and the excitement of pursuing a carrier in Nuclear Engineering. Historically, students transferred from CNM into our Nuclear Engineering program at UNM have done very well and graduate on schedule.
In 2005/2006 we established the alliance with CNM for the two + two program. In this program, students in the pre-engineering track complete the course requirements for the first two years at CNM and then transfer as juniors into our Nuclear Engineering Program at UNM, graduating with a BS in two years. Students who complete freshman requirements at CNM can transfer up to 26 applicable credits into our Nuclear Engineering program at UNM and be admitted as sophomores; they graduate within 3 years with a BS in Nuclear Engineering. When qualified undergraduate students were offered NMONE fellowships, most of them graduated within 3 years, after completing the freshman year courses. I have been going to CNM's pre-engineering program twice a semester to talk to potential students about nuclear engineering in general and our NE program at UNM in particular. Since the start of the NMONE fellowship program in October 2000, we have provided fellowships to thirty six (36) undergraduate students and seven (7) graduate students.
In May 2003, the first two undergraduate NMONE fellows graduated, in 2005 six more graduated, in 2006 another six fellows graduated, and in 2007 three fellows graduates with a BS in Nuclear Engineering. The average GPA of these fellows averaged GPA of 3.4 or higher. All NMONE graduates are either enrolled in graduate school, have taken a job, or expected to attend graduate school in the future.
Dr. Jeffery King, a NMONE graduate fellow, graduated in May 2006 with a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the University of New Mexico in May 2006. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Nuclear Engineering Program at the University of Missouri-Rolla. He started his faculty assignment in the fall 2006. Steven Hatton graduated with an MS in Nuclear Engineering in August 2007 and is currently working as a nuclear engineering analyst for a DETRA contractor in Albuquerque, NM. Jack Parker is finishing his PhD dissertation and expected to graduate in May 2008.
The NMONE undergraduate fellowship is $3000 per year, distributed in two equal installments, one towards the end of the fall semester and one towards the end of the spring semester. Each semester the fellows' academic record is reviewed and discussed with the NMONE fellowship program faculty advisor Professor M. S. El-Genk. Undergraduate fellows whose GPA reaches or exceeds 3.5 in any academic semester receive an additional $250 that semester.
The number of undergraduate students in nuclear engineering who are currently receiving NMONE fellowships totals ten (1): five female and five male, including two Hispanics, and eight Caucasians. In addition, in 2007 we partially funded four graduate students, one finished his MS degree in May 2007 and three are currently working on their PhD; one Asian, and two Caucasian.
IMPACT
Since October 2000, the NMONE Fellowship Program has had a strong impact on our graduate and undergraduate enrollments in Nuclear Engineering at UNM and contributed greatly to the success of our recruiting effort. The Department of Energy's NMONE Fellowship Program has been a great success and we expect this positive trend to continue. Students receiving NMONE fellowships do not need to work many hours outside of the school and therefore, are more likely to continue their full time status and graduate on schedule with a high GPA.
More than 90% of the undergraduate students who started as NMONE fellows graduated within 3 years after completing their freshman year courses with an average GPA of 3.4 or higher. More than 50% of the NMONE fellow graduates went on to graduate school at UNM, Purdue University, MIT, University of New Mexico and North Carolina State University to pursue advanced degrees. A number of the NMONE graduates are working for U.S. Navy nuclear submarine program, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), AREVA and other industry, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories. The current undergraduate enrollment in the Nuclear Engineering Program at UNM is 36 fulltime students and the graduate enrollment is 42 students, most are working on their PhD.
The equipment purchased on the DOE award in 2005/2006 are being used in our nuclear measurements teaching laboratory and include: Preamplifiers, Amplifier / Single Channel Analyzers, Multichannel Analyzers, High Voltage Power Supplies, and Multichannel Scalars. We purchased two sets of each equipment piece, which greatly increased the teaching capacity of our undergraduate NE laboratory, doubled the number of students in the junior radiation detection and measurements laboratory. This provided the needed strength to our NE program as these laboratories have been a limiting factor on class size. By increasing the number of equipment stations, we increased educational opportunities, nad have been able to handle up to 12 students per lab section.
In the fall 2006 we purchased and setup additional equipment that included a Spectroscopy Amplifiers, BF3 Neutron Detectors, Fission Chambers, Semiconductor Detectors, and Foils for Neutron Activation. The additional equipment significantly enhanced the capability of our junior level neutron measurements and neutron activation analysis laboratory. Again by providing additional equipment, we increased the hands-on opportunities to our students to better understand NE fundamentals.
The laboratory equipment purchased with DOE funds under the NMONE fellowship program is being used both by our regular students in Nuclear Engineering and those enrolled in the medical physics graduate program. This new program started two years ago, jointly with the medical School at UNM and already has very healthy enrollment of 10 -15 students.
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