Another summer of major breakthroughs for our growing interdisciplinary nuclear program and our Ph.D. Radiochemistry Track. Five major US Department of Energy (DOE) and US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) awards by teams led by Chemistry & Biochemistry Department!
- An interdisciplinary research team led by Dr. Konstantinos Kavallieratos at the Chemistry & Biochemistry Department, together with Drs. Raphael Raptis and Alexander Mebel secured a $390,000 1-year award (renewable for up to 3 years for a total of $1.2M) from Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (a subsidiary of US Dept. of Energy Office of Environmental Management) for advanced Cesium, Strontium, and Actinide separations from high-level nuclear waste.
- New Chemistry & Biochemistry Department Assistant Professor, Dr. Christopher Dares, secured a new $800,000 3-year DOE-Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP) award on Americium separation by electrochemical oxidation, in collaboration with Idaho National Laboratory, and University Of North Carolina.
- Drs. Kavallieratos and Dares, in collaboration with Drs. Roelant and Triay at the FIU Applied Research Center (ARC) secured a major effort for FIU within a prestigious new $10M Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) Award to Florida State University, from the US DOE Office of Science, amounting to $900,000 for the next 4 years, in order to advance Actinide science and advanced separations.
These were followed by two awards from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
- A $400,000 4-year award (also led by Dr. Kavallieratos) to grow our Nuclear Research Fellowships program to 9 fully supported Ph.D graduate students annually in Radiochemistry Ph.D track and grow further our nuclear and radiochemistry program
- A $195,000 2-year award (led by Dr. Reinhold in Physics, Dr. Kavallieratos in Chemistry, and Dr. Roelant, in ARC) to grow our Undergraduate Nuclear Research Scholarship Program and further support together the future growth of our Ph.D Radiochemistry track and the nascent Health Physics undergraduate program.
The two latter grants bring the total support received from NRC within the past 3 years to over $2.1M, mainly for graduate student research support, and faculty development, but also for curriculum development and undergraduate research.
Congratulations to all involved!
