2025 was a year full of accomplishments and progress within the ReTI group.
- New students include Gabriel Dengler-Jeanblanc, Jacob Fowler, and Juan Miguel Valderrama joining from UW-Madison, Georgia Tech, and University of Florida respectively. Their work covers many aspects of fission, fusion, and general nuclear economics.
- Three students completed their preliminary exams this year: Ethan Fowler on high temperature gas reactor run-in methods and novel control rod designs, Liz Keith on integrated desalination and mineral recovery with nuclear power plants, and Hitarth Shah on applying systems engineering methods to fusion system design.
- Mohammad Amer Allaf received a promotion from postdoctoral research assistant to research scientist and Taesuk Oh joined the group as a postdoctoral researcher.
- One undergraduate student and two MS students graduated after working with ReTI on a variety of projects including fusion economics and fission reactor design. Virginia Lilly, Oliver Paleen, and Dylan Garofalo moved on to jobs at Westinghouse, Terrapower, and Dairyland Power.
- Three PhD students graduated this year: Ryan Dailey on the optimization of technoeconomics for fast fission reactors, Matthew Nyberg on the development of a fission-fusion hybrid device for transmuting long-lived fission waste, and Aidan Rigby on the design and optimization of a nuclear-solar integrated energy system. A picture of the three of them under the classic Camp Randall Arch is included below:
