Highlights from Aggieland Saturday

On February 21, the Department of Nuclear Engineering participated in Aggieland Saturday, a campus wide event designed to introduce prospective students to the university. The Department of Nuclear Engineering had one of the most popular booths in the Zachry Engineering Center where information was passed out and prospective students had an opportunity to talk to faculty members and current students about what nuclear engineers and health physicists do, as well as what programs we have available. Over 400 people visited our booth and 300 packets of information were passed out.

In addition to the standard information booth, tours of the radiation detection and measurement laboratories were also given by Claudio Gariazzo of the Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (NSSPI) and Chris Prause, the laboratory manager for Nuclear Engineering, to over 100 high school students and their families. The experience gave students a chance to see what study in Nuclear Engineering looks like from the "inside." Prause and Gariazzo discussed various areas of graduate research and careers in the radiological health/health physics areas and the nonproliferation/nuclear security areas, respectively. Students were able to ask questions regarding the curriculum that incorporated the laboratories, possible projects that could utilize the hardware, and graduate-level study that would apply the basic theories learned in these laboratories. It also afforded a more informal forum to discuss students' prospects in Nuclear Engineering beyond their undergraduate educations, as the conversations veered towards career opportunities and graduate studies. According to Gariazzo, "The high school students and their parents were very welcoming of the comments and enthusiastic about the prospects for their futures within TAMU’s Nuclear Engineering department."

Nuclear Engineering was represented at Aggieland Saturday by Department Head Dr. Raymond Juzaitis, as well as faculty members, Dr. John Poston and Dr. William Marlow, undergraduate recruiter Beth Earl, and student volunteers Spencer Mickum, Kevin Kapka, Adam Shephard, Maria Catanach, William Sames, John Martin, Chris Saindon, Courtney Cathey, Marie Cronholm, Tyrell Foster, and Alex Smith.