Chair
R. Patrick White
Patrick White is a fourth-year PhD student in the Nuclear Science and Engineering Department at MIT, focusing on nuclear reactor licensing and regulation. Patrick was a graduate researcher on the 2018 MIT “Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World” study and co-authored report sections on licensing issues related to advanced nuclear reactor deployment worldwide. His current doctoral work is on developing new safety analysis and design methods to support the licensing and deployment of novel nuclear technologies.
Prior to starting graduate school at MIT, Patrick worked for MPR Associates in Alexandria, VA solving engineering problems at commercial nuclear power plants and co-authored an ERPI report on transitioning existing baseload nuclear power plants to flexible power (load following) operations. Patrick received his B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2012 and has previously interned with the Westinghouse Electric Company and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
Co-Vice Chairs
Micah Folsom
Micah Folsom is a PhD candidate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, performing his research at Oak Ridge National Lab. His focus is radiation detection and his thesis is on the development of a portable fast neutron imaging system to detect and localize special nuclear material. Micah received his MSc in 2017 and has also worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and Pacific Northwest National Lab in the past, developing radiation detectors for safeguards applications. He is a co-vice chair of the 2018 Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation and participated in 2017 as a delegate.
Hannah Gardiner
Hannah Gardiner is a fifth year Ph.D. student in Nuclear Engineering at the University of Florida. She received her M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Florida in May 2016 and her B.S. in Physics from Louisiana State University in May 2014. Her current research is focused on designing an x-ray backscatter radiography system to measure in-field root system architecture in order to produce crops that increase carbon-organic matter in the soil, reduce fertilizer use, and increase water productivity. She has interned at Pacific Northwest National Lab developing algorithms for low-count radiation measurements as well as at RAND Corporation providing guidance for radiological and nuclear event preparation.
Hannah is an active member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS), serving on the National ANS Social Media Team, is a past secretary for UF chapter of the the Institute for Nuclear Material Management (INMM), and serves as the Chair of the UF College of Engineering Graduate Student Council. In her free time, Hannah enjoys cooking, travelling, and exploring the outdoors with her dog, Bear.
Delegates
J. Neal Atkinson
Neal Atkinson is a member of the 2018 Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation and a Junior in the Nuclear and Radiological Engineering Department at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Neal’s background includes five rotations as a co-op with Southern Nuclear Operating Company where he focused on item equivalency and replacing obsolete parts in the fleet reactors. He has worked at two different operating plants and the new Vogtle 3&4 units under construction in Waynesboro, GA, which will be the first Generation III+ units to open in the United States. His interests outside of school and work include running, cooking, reading, and of course, all things political.
Anna Biela
Anna Biela is a senior in Nuclear Engineering and an undergraduate research assistant at Purdue University. Her undergraduate research focused on using reactor physics modeling to assess the feasibility of a proposed light water reactor safety system. She plans to go to graduate school for at least an M.S. in Nuclear Engineering and pursue research in either computational modeling or reactor cybersecurity.
Anna is also heavily involved with the Purdue Student Section of the American Nuclear Society and departmental events and initiatives. She co-founded the Women in Nuclear chapter at Purdue and is a proponent of diversity in the nuclear industry and academia.
Kevin Cass
Kevin Cass is a member of the 2018 Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation and a second-year Master’s student in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also a member of GE Power’s Edison Engineering Development Program, a two-year rotational program which aims to develop the next generation of GE Power’s technical leaders. Before starting the Edison program and graduate studies at Georgia Tech, Kevin graduated with degrees in Nuclear Engineering and Mechanical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. He also interned with the fast reactor group at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria.
Andrew Conant
Andrew Conant is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in Nuclear Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is currently a Nuclear Nonproliferation International Safeguards (NNIS) Fellow and a previous Integrated University Program (IUP) Fellow from DOE-NEUP. His current research focuses on reactor physics modeling and simulation for nonprolfieration and safeguards applications. His current research focuses on uncertainty analysis in antineutrinos produced from reactors for safeguards monitoring at nuclear facilities.
Andrew is an active member of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and serves on the Student Sections Committee (SSC). At Georgia Tech, he has been an instructor for the freshman seminar course for nuclear engineers as well as leadership coaching. He has previous had internships at Areva (now Framatome) as well as Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. In his free time, he enjoys going to concerts, running, drinking craft beer, and playing board games.
Victor Ibarra Jr.
Victor Ibarra Jr. is a proud first generation Mexican-American from Garland, Texas pursuing his Bachelors of Science degree in Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University.
Throughout his time at Texas A&M, Victor has been involved in undergraduate research, worked as a Teaching Assistant in the engineering department, and has secured internships at NASA as part of their Reduced-Gravity Flights Opportunities Program, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant.
In addition to his academic work, Victor has been actively involved in the American Nuclear Society (ANS) section on campus and has served a variety of leadership positions inside the organization. Outside of ANS, Victor has also served as the chair of the Texas Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation (TNESD), Texas’ very own spin off of NESD.
In his free time, Victor enjoys rock climbing, playing FIFA with his friends, and spending time at his family’s ranch.
Jeremy King
Jeremy King received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in May 2017. He began his research career in the Department of Mechanical Engineering where he studied the smoldering combustion of sawdust for use in household ovens within third world nations. Between his sophomore and junior years, he was offered a job at The Applied Research Laboratories: UT Austin where he studied acoustics in a variety of projects. After exposure to the field of nuclear security in his elective classes, he applied for graduate school in nuclear engineering.
Jeremy is now Ph.D. student at Texas A&M University as a member of the Center for Nuclear Security Science and Policy Initiatives. He was awarded a Nuclear Regulatory Commission Fellowship for his first year of school, and is spending the summer of 2018 at Los Alamos National Laboratory where he is supporting research projects for the National Nuclear Security Administration. Outside of school and work, Jeremy enjoys exercising, cooking, learning languages, and spending time with friends.
Isaac Meyer
Isaac Meyer is currently a second-year PhD student in the Nuclear Science and Engineering Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering from UC Berkeley in 2017. Isaac’s current research is in the propagation of uncertainty in neutronics simulations. He has had internship experiences at Argonne and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Isaac is an active member of the MIT ANS chapter and enjoys participating in outreach events to share what he has learned about a variety of nuclear topics. Outside of class, Isaac enjoys attending concerts, reading science fiction, and the occasional hike.
Mitch Negus
Mitch is a third year PhD student focusing on computational nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley. He believes that nuclear energy has the potential to be a sustainable, clean power source for the future, and so is working on modeling nuclear reactors using novel simulation methods. In the process, he’s developed an interest in bringing the techniques of reproducible and open-source data-science to the nuclear field. Before moving to the Bay Area, Mitch earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and performed nuclear physics research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Outside of academics, Mitch is an active member of the Berkeley Nuclear Environmental Outreach Group. This is a team of students looking to make nuclear science—and especially nuclear energy’s merits as an environmentally conscious energy source—accessible to the general public. He also loves to run competitively, and spends most of his spare time training in the Berkeley hills.
Jillian Newmyer
Jillian Newmyer is a second year graduate student in Radiation Health Physics at Oregon State University. Her current research focus is evaluating radionuclide uptake in frogs around Fukushima. She graduated from the University of Tennessee with a BS in Nuclear Engineering and a minor in physics. She is originally from Columbia, South Carolina, where her interest in the nuclear industry was peaked due to the closeness of the VC Summer Nuclear Power Plant. She has previously interned at Plant Hatch in Baxley, GA in the Reactor Engineering Department and at SHINE Medical Technologies as a criticality safety intern.
She enjoys spending her free time teaching nuclear science to little kids, catching up on Netflix shows, and playing one of her many board games.
Emma Redfoot
Emma Redfoot is a master’s student at the University of Idaho (UI) studying Nuclear Engineering. She graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland Oregon with a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies. Currently, Emma is finishing her thesis research on Nuclear Renewable Hybrid Energy Systems. Summer of 2017, Emma worked as an operations intern at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, the last nuclear power plant in California.
Emma developed her interest in nuclear power during her undergraduate studies when she lived in Ecuador and Peru for a combined time of about a year. During her time in South America, she saw what it meant to not have stable energy resources. After looking into different energy solutions, Emma concluded that nuclear power made the most sense as a reliable energy source that helps mitigate climate change.
Emma is actively involved in nuclear advocacy. She is co-founder of the group Students for Nuclear as well as actively involved in Mothers for Nuclear. Emma is very engaged with the American Nuclear Society. In her spare time, Emma enjoys rock climbing and cross-fit.
Danielle Tincher
Daniell received his B.Sc. in physics from Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina and then earned a M.Sc. in nuclear engineering from the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, South Carolina. His master’s thesis focused on the feasibility of a method to reducing the burden of high level waste by recycling minor actinides in light water reactos. After earning his master’s, Daniell then worked for four years as a mechanical engineer at Newport News Shipbuilding where he performed engineering analyses on the USS Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier reactor plant fluid systems.
Daniell is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. His research explores and develops tools that enable real-time, on-the-fly interaction with licensed production nuclear analysis codes using best practices of human machine interface to provide a platform that enables deeper understanding of the modeled phenomena. He was awarded a U.S. DOE NEUP Fellowship in 2016. Daniell is an active member of the American Nuclear Society, and he served as the President of the VCU Student Section for the past two years. When he is not in the lab at school, Daniell enjoys traveling, local brews, and hiking.
Pavel Velkovsky
Pavel is a third year undergraduate Political Science and French major at UC Berkeley. His research interests include nuclear security and nonproliferation, and he has been involved with programs through the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium, including the Nuclear Policy Working Group. In his free time, Pavel enjoys hiking and rock climbing.
Robert Zedric
Robert is a PhD student at Texas A&M in the Department of Nuclear Engineering. Supported by the Nuclear Nonproliferation and International Safeguards fellowship, his work aims to halt the global spread of nuclear weapons by improving technologies for verification of treaties and safeguards agreements. He recently spent a year at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria and conducted research on the damaging effects of radiation on certain electronics. He is now continuing this work for his PhD, which can lead to better understanding and designs of electronics to withstand radiation environments.
Robert maintains a wide range of activities and interests. Among these include his involvement in the Texas A&M chapter of the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management as a past president. He also serves as the commodore of the Aggie Yacht Club. In his free time, he enjoys baking, salsa dancing, and all things outdoors. His career interests after graduation focus on the international applications of emerging nuclear technologies in matters of strategic interest to the United States.
Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation 