2015 Delegation

Chair

Lane Carasik

Lane Carasik is a PhD graduate student and Nuclear Energy University Programs Fellow at Texas A&M University studying nuclear and mechanical engineering under Dr. Yassin Hassan. At A&M, Lane is a part of the Nuclear Power Engineering Research group that conducts research on current and advanced reactor technologies. His research interests include nuclear thermal hydraulics and methods development for computational fluid dynamics.

Currently, Lane is a visiting researcher at the Imperial College London investigating turbulent thermal jets under Dr. Simon Walker. He has had previous internships at Westinghouse Electric Company and Tennessee Valley Authority working on reactor coolant systems. At Westinghouse Electric Company, he worked on steady state and transient analysis for Électricité de France reactor coolant system components and CFD method development. Lane has also participated in a REU at Georgia Tech Savannah researching aircraft manufacturing.

Lane graduated in December 2012 with his bachelors in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. At UTK, he conducted nuclear thermal hydraulics research under Dr. Arthur Ruggles.

Lane is an active member of the American Nuclear Society and American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Lane is currently the Vice Chair of the ANS Student Section Committee, Thermal Hydraulics Division Executive Committee member, and the 2015 ANS Student Conference Technical Director. Lane has previously been the Chair of the UTK ANS student section and the student chair for PHYSOR 2012.

Co-Vice Chairs

Samantha Winkle

Samantha Winkle is currently a master’s student in Nuclear Engineering with an academic focus on Nuclear Forensics at the University of Utah. Samantha’s research focus is in nuclear safeguards, security and non-proliferation and she is supported by an NRC Graduate Fellowship. Her current work centers on safeguards verifications using Cherenkov radiation and developing curricula for courses that tie the technical world of nuclear engineering with the policy side of the nuclear industry. She has recently been awarded a Nuclear Engineering Graduate Fellowship position working for NNSA Office NA-532.

Samantha is active in the American Nuclear Society (ANS) both nationally and locally. She has long held positions on the University of Utah’s ANS Student Chapter Board, having previously held the positions of Recruitment Officer, Communication and Company Relations Officer and Vice-President, and President, as well as being appointed to serve on the ANS Membership Committee. She currently serves as the Graduate Student Advisor for her student chapter.

Samantha’s interests include nuclear safety, nuclear policy and educating the general public about nuclear energy. Outside of academics she enjoys playing video games, cross-stitching and volunteering with the Girl Scouts.

Kyle Hartig

In 2011 Kyle embarked on a five-year program to earn his doctorate degree in nuclear engineering at the Pennsylvania State University. His focus is nuclear forensics, nonproliferation, and remote sensing, specializing in remote detection of proliferation activities.

Kyle’s current research is on laser induced breakdown spectroscopy using ultrashort high-intensity shaped laser pulses—a technique that will enable analysts to identify materials and their isotopic makeup with little to no sample preparation. Kyle was an NNSA Nonproliferation Graduate Fellow from 2011-2012 at DOE/NNSA Headquarters in the Nonproliferation and International Security Office, and is currently a G.T. Seaborg Graduate Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory where he conducts a portion of his doctoral research.

Since 2011 Kyle has been a fellow in the Nuclear Forensics Graduate Fellowship program sponsored by the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security and Defense Threat Reduction Agency. For three summers from 2009 through 2011 Kyle worked as a Nuclear Engineer for the Department of Defense, conducting oversight of servicing and operations of submarine reactors at Naval Base Kitsap in Washington State.

Outside of research, Kyle enjoys backpacking, hiking, fishing and competitive sailing.

Delegates

Kelsey Amundson

Kelsey is an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin – Madison studying nuclear engineering and earning certificates in nuclear materials and mathematics. For the past few years she has worked in the Engineering Physics Materials Group (EPMG) at UW-Madison under the direction of Dr. Kumar Sridharan. Within the EPMG Kelsey currently works in the Ion Beam Lab assisting with irradiation testing. Previously, Kelsey has been involved in the following projects: stress corrosion cracking of stainless steels for dry cask canisters, electrophoretic deposition coatings for fuel claddings, and emissivity of fuel claddings. In addition to undergraduate research, she had an internship at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in the core materials engineering group.

Kelsey is actively involved in her ANS student section, by holding multiple executive board positions including: Governor, Communications Officer, Public Information Officer, and has recently been elected as President for the 2015-2016 academic year. In addition, she is helping plan the 2016 ANS Student Conference by chairing the Hospitality Sub-Committee. Recently, Kelsey has become more involved in the Student Sections Committee by joining the Categorization Committee.

Outside of academics, Kelsey enjoys reading, hiking, and ultimate frisbee.

Sarah Camba

Sarah Camba is an undergraduate at Texas A&M University studying Nuclear Engineering and pursuing a certificate in Engineering Project Management. Through her academic career she has been in involved in undergraduate research, with projects ranging from nuclear security to plant operations & engineering training. Sarah is a student assistant at the Nuclear Power Institute, contributing to their K-12 outreach programs and International Atomic Energy Agency Nuclear Management Schools. Her academic interests include Regulatory Affairs, Fuel Management, and Project Management. For the past three summers she has interned at Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant in Glen Rose, Texas working in the Mechanical Plant Reliability and Reactor Engineering groups.

In addition to her academic work, she has been very involved in student organizations on campus. Past positions held include High School Newsletter Committee for the TAMU Society of Women Engineers chapter, Treasurer and Vice President of TAMU Women in Nuclear chapter and Co-Chair for the 2015 American Nuclear Society Student Conference. Outside of academic activities she enjoys travel, cooking, and reading.

Ethan Chaleff

Ethan Chaleff is a Ph.D. Candidate in Nuclear Engineering at The Ohio State University. Born and raised in New Jersey, he has lived in Ohio since 2008 when he began attending Case Western Reserve University to pursue a degree in Aerospace Engineering. During that time, Ethan worked at GE on an extended co-op in their combustion engineering division, participating in engine certification for the GEnx engine. He was also the captain of Case Western’s Baja-SAE team and was awarded the School of engineering Award for Excellence in Engineering both his junior and senior years. During his studies, he realized that Nuclear Energy systems were a challenge he could devote his career to and he changed his major to Mechanical Engineering while pursuing independent study in nuclear engineering. After graduating Magna Cum Laude with his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, he began his graduate studies at Ohio State in 2012 on the NASA- Steckler Space Research Grant.

Ethan is currently a Department of Energy NEUP Fellow investigating radiation heat transfer effects in advanced reactors under Dr. Thomas Blue. He has spent a summer as an intern at Oak Ridge National Lab developing simulation packages for the design of advanced molten salt reactors. His thesis research will focus on experimental and computational quantification of the infrared absorption spectrum in candidate salts for advanced reactors. Ethan has been involved with ANS since he began graduate school, serving for one year as the ANS chapter president at Ohio State and attending numerous student and professional conferences. Outside of his graduate studies, Ethan is an avid rock climber who always knows the driving distance between the city he’s in and the nearest mountain.

Maxwell Daniels

Maxwell is a master’s student at Idaho State University (ISU) studying Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSEN). He graduated ISU in May 2015 with a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering. Currently he holds a senior reactor operator (SRO) license at the AGN-201 research reactor where he conducts research on materials reactivity analysis and creates outreach efforts to educate the public on nuclear energy concepts. Prior to this position, Maxwell has interned as both a mechanical and process engineer.

Maxwell’s current research focuses on the design, build, and implementation of a solid-state reactor control console at the AGN-201. Previously, Maxwell has performed research on criticality safety and alternative uses of small modular reactors (SMRs). His research interests include advanced reactor concepts, nuclear energy policy, and nuclear aerospace applications.

Maxwell is active in both the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM). He currently presides over the INMM student chapter at ISU and has previously served as an officer in the ISU student chapter of the ANS. In his spare time, Maxwell enjoys video games, hiking, and power lifting.

Remy DeVoe

Remy was born in New York City, NY March 22, 1990 to Beth and Guy Devoe. Within a year he moved to Nashville, TN where he grew up and attended Hillsboro Comprehensive High School. He graduated in 2008 and began his studies in Nuclear Engineering in 2009 at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Remy graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Nuclear Engineering May 2013 and began graduate school in the Department of Nuclear Engineering in the Fall of 2013. He continues school as a Masters student and resides in Knoxville, TN. Since 2011, Remy has been a member of the American Nuclear Society University of Tennessee, Knoxville Student Chapter and is currently the Vice President of the student organization. He is completing his Masters research under the guidance of John Scaglione at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and his advisor Dr. Steven Skutnik at the University of Tennessee. He plans to graduate in May 2015 and become a Doctoral Candidate the following Fall. His research area is in modeling and simulation of used nuclear fuel systems.

Michaels Eades

Michael Eades is a Ph.D. Candidate in Nuclear Engineering at The Ohio State, NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship Recipient, and visiting technologist at the Center for Space Nuclear Research (CSNR). He graduated from OSU with a B.S. Engineering Physics magna cum laude and Honors Research Distinction in 2012. As an undergraduate he was the student lead on the NASA Steckler Project at OSU which researched the application of molten salt reactors for space colonization.

As a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship Recipient and visiting technologist at the Center for Space Nuclear Research, Michael Eades supports NASA’s nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP)research efforts. NTP is a promising technology which may allow NASA to reduce transit times on planned human Mars missions in the mid-2030s His research focuses on nuclear thermal propulsion design, Brayton cycle optimization and modeling Xe-135 transients in nuclear thermal propulsion systems. Michael Eades is a member of the executive committee for the Aerospace Nuclear Science and Technology Division of the American Nuclear Society.

Maggie Flicker-Byers

Maggie Flicker Byers is currently a master’s student in the Nuclear and Radiation Engineering program at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her B.S. in chemistry from the University of California at Los Angeles in 2013. In pursuing her desires to apply her scientific background to environmental concerns, she joined Dr. Erich Schneider’s nuclear fuel cycle group in the fall of 2013. After finishing her master’s thesis in the summer of 2015 she plans to continue on to obtain her PhD in the same program.

Her current research is focused on nuclear fuel supply security. The recovery of uranium from seawater is a project currently under development by Oak Ridge and Pacific Northwest National Labs along with many university partners as it is believed to be a back stop technology for conventional mining. Maggie’s work deals specifically with the cost and energy analysis of the industrial scale up of a passive uranium recovery system. Her master thesis will detail the creation of an optimization tool used to minimize recovery cost by varying system and design parameters.

Maggie aspires to be engaged in the engineering community and spread its benefits to others. She is an active member of the American Nuclear Society at the national level, having served as a student program co-chair at an ANS annual meeting. She continues to hold the position of graduate event coordinator at UT’s Women in Mechanical Engineering program in order to foster community among women in the department. She also maintains the role of outreach chair in the ANS chapter at UT with the goal of educating fellow university members and the general public on the many benefits of nuclear power. Outside of these school, she serves as a volunteer math and science tutor for Girl Scout’s Troop 1500, which is composed of young girls with incarcerated mothers.

Justin Knowles

Justin Knowles is a PhD student studying Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering at the University of Tennessee. He obtained his B.S. in Nuclear Engineering at Purdue University in 2013. Justin’s hometown is Meridian, Idaho where he gained experiences working in semiconductor research and development at Micron Technology in addition to materials science and engineering research at Boise State University. Upon attending Purdue University, Justin became involved with the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and was elected president of the Purdue student section in his junior year. Throughout his time at Purdue, Justin spent his summers in Idaho Falls working at the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Test Reactor, Materials and Fuels Complex, and National and Homeland Security division. In addition, Justin completed rigorous training courses designed for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, including pre- inspector training and pyroprocessing safeguards training. His research interests include nuclear forensics, radiochemistry, pyroprocessing, and nuclear safeguards. Currently, Justin is researching advanced nuclear forensics methods through application of Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) at the ORNL High Flux Isotope Reactor for fissile material characterization. In his spare time, Justin enjoys running, hiking, and volunteering in the community.

Taylor Lane

Taylor Lane is currently a Masters Student studying Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University. He graduated with his Bachelors degree in Nuclear Engineering in May 2013 from Texas A&M as well. He is currently on a summer internship at Sandia National Laboratories where he is developing a time and energy dependent flux for the dry well of the Annular Core Research Reactor (ACRR). In 2011 he interned in the Remote Systems Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and helped design state-of-the- art hot cell facilities.

His current research is in the field of radiation-hydrodynamics. His thesis aims to more accurately simulate how radiation moves through a mixture of turbulent fluids. Taylor has been involved in research for almost 4 years and is passionate about getting younger students involved as well. To aid in this mission he is the Technical Coordinator of the Student Research Week (SRW) Planning Committee. SRW is the largest student-run research competition in the nation. Prior to graduating, he spent 2 years as an undergraduate researcher where he was funded through the Undergraduate Summer Research Grant (USRG) and Research Opportunities in Engineering (ROE) programs. Taylor was also selected as an Undergraduate Research Scholar at Texas A&M and published an undergraduate thesis. He has both presented and published his work internationally and won Best Paper: Undergraduate at the 2013 American Nuclear Society Student Conference.

Taylor is actively involved in the American Nuclear Society, both nationally and locally. He has served in a variety of leadership positions since he came to A&M, the last of which being the TAMU Section President. Outside of school, Taylor is avid supporter of STEM outreach and has presented to K-12 science classes around the state of Texas. When he has free time, Taylor enjoys playing golf and football.

Mateusz Monterial

Mateusz Monterial is a Nuclear Engineering PhD Candidate at the University of Michigan. He graduate with a BS degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Florida in 2011. Upon graduation he spent one year as an intern at Oak Ridge National Laboratory under the Nuclear Engineering Science Laboratory Synthesis program before joining University of Michigan in the Fall of 2012. Mateusz is currently finishing up his dissertation work at Sandia National Laboratories in California. His dissertation will focus on the fission chain dynamics as they relate to characterizing subcritical masses of special nuclear material.

Outside of his studies Mateusz is an active member of the American Nuclear Society, serving as an Executive Committee member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division. He also served as the President of UM’s Alpha Nu Sigma society and Vice President of UM’s Institute of Nuclear Materials Management.

Blake Palles

Blake is a doctoral student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxvillein Energy Science and Engineering with the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education.Blake is also a Nuclear Nonproliferation International Safeguards (NNIS) fellow.His research interests include fast neutron imaging, gamma ray spectrometry, arms control, nuclear security, and non-proliferation studies. He graduated with a BS in nuclear engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2014.

Currently, Blake is a graduate researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Nuclear Materials Detection and Characterization group, working with Dr. John Mihalczo on projects including development of the Nuclear Materials Identification System.

He is a member of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, the American Nuclear Society, and the Health Physics Society, and the immediate past president of the INMM chapter at the University of Tennessee. Beyond academics, Blake enjoys scuba diving, cooking, and literature.

Rita Patel

Rita Patel is a PhD graduate student and Nuclear Energy University Programs Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh studying Mechanical Engineering under the advising of Dr. Mark Kimber. Her current research is within the field of thermal hydraulics and focuses on improved heat transfer properties during nucleate boiling of nanofluids.

Currently, Rita is an intern with the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory investigating the effect of non-uniform power profiles on the statistical uncertainty of RELAP5 analysis under the advising of Dr. David Aumiller and Dr. Frank Buschman. She has previously interned at the Forschungszentrum Research Center in Jülich, Germany and Lockheed Martin Corporation in Baltimore, Maryland. At FZJ, she studied the effect of high- temperature vapor environments on sigma transformation in ferritic alloys. Rita also spent a summer studying case law and creating office actions for the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office within the field of semiconductors.

Rita graduated with her bachelors and masters in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in April 2012 and April 2014 respectively. For her masters at Pitt, she conducted research in the field of high temperature corrosion under the advising of Dr. Gerald Meier.

Rita is an active member of the American Nuclear Society both locally and nationally. She helped found the Pitt Student Section in April of 2012 and since then has served as President, Secretary, and Executive-at-Large. She has also been involved with the Pittsburgh local section as an Executive-at-Large and most recently as Vice Chair. Currently, Rita serves as a Membership committee member as well as student program chair for the upcoming DES 2016 Topical Meeting. Outside of school Rita enjoys running, baking, and playing Quidditch.

Sarah Sarnoski

Sarah Sarnoski is a PhD graduate student in nuclear engineering and a Toshiba Westinghouse Fellow at Pennsylvania State University. She obtained her B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Florida in 2013. Sarah’s research at Penn State is conducted under Dr. Kenan Ünlü and focuses on nuclear detection technologies, nonproliferation technologies, and nuclear policy.

Sarah has been an active, national member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) since 2011, and has attended numerous conferences. She was Vice President of her student chapter at the University of Florida. Sarah is also involved with the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM). She served the club as Vice-President during her first year at Penn State, and then served as President the past year and was recently reelected.

In her undergraduate studies Sarah spent two summers at Los Alamos National Laboratory performing modeling research. She also spent a summer at Penn State as a part of the Toshiba Westinghouse Summer Program where she worked on a post processor for COBRA-TF.

Outside of academic research, Sarah enjoys hiking, watching soccer, and fly fishing.

Spencer Scott

Spencer is currently a Ph.D. student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) studying Nuclear Engineering and Science. He graduated from RPI in 2013 with a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering, going on to join the Nano- Nuclear and Energy Materials Laboratory (NEML), developing materials for nuclear applications.

Spencer’s research has been primarily focusedon the nuclear fuel cycle, with the goal of a sustainable, closed nuclear fuel cycle. He has worked to develop capture and sequestration materials for iodine-129 in proposed used nuclear fuel reprocessing systems. His other research includes enhancements to conventional uranium dioxide fuel forms, and the development of uranium silicide fuels with the ultimate goal of accident tolerant fuels.

In addition to his academic work, Spencer is heavily involved in the student organizations at RPI. He’s a two-term senator in the Rensselaer Union Student Senate, and the current chair of the Academic Affairs Committee, as well as a former Vice-President of the RPI Student Section of the American Nuclear Society.

In his free time he enjoys travel, playing video games, and soccer.