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Nuclear Engineer

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To some, nuclear energy may be as popular as a polka at a rock concert. But Jasmina Vujuc thinks that the image isn't deserved.

"We need to make the distinction between energy production and producing bombs. Nuclear energy production is good. Making bombs isn't good."

Much of the electricity we use comes from nuclear power plants -- they generate about 20 percent of America's electricity, according to the Associated Press.

"I see people protesting all the time here for nuclear-free zones," says Vujic. She is an assistant professor of nuclear engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. "I want to ask them if they know the difference between what is peaceful use of nuclear education and what isn't."

Vujic has over 20 years of experience as a nuclear engineer. She received her early education and undergraduate degrees in Yugoslavia. She earned her master's and PhD in nuclear science from the University of Michigan.

Vujic currently directs Cal-Berkeley's Advanced Nuclear Engineering Computing Laboratory and teaches a class in nuclear facility operations.

Numerical methods in reactor physics, neutron and photon transport, reactor core design and analysis and optimizing techniques for vector and parallel computers are her bread and butter.

Vujic visits area high schools to encourage young women to become engineers. "Girls and boys start out the same with studies, but something happens at higher levels," she says.

"Young women tend to get pushed to languages and literature and young men to math and engineering. I always tell young women that this field is 10 percent talent and 90 percent work. If you work, you can do it."

Watching a nuclear-powered submarine leave port was a career highlight for Brad Olson. He was on a team that completely reassembled a sub at the U.S. Naval Shipyard at Mare Island, California.

"The sub had been shut down for two years and had been completely gutted. We worked around the clock, reinstalled the power plants. We were cutting things with torches and put everything back together. Painted everything so it looked brand new. To see it operate and all put back together was very satisfying."

Olson is a project engineer with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Walnut Creek, California. He oversees some operations at a nuclear plant.

Madeline Feltus remembers doing an up close and personal inspection of a nuclear power plant in New Jersey.

"I was flown down from Newark on a helicopter to inspect the upper internals support equipment to see if we had cracking in pins that held the fuel in place. It was exciting for me because I got to crawl under the 20-ton mass of steel and guts of the internal support package," she says.

"Inspecting the spent [irradiated] fuel was neat. I really enjoyed getting to work in the field as well as doing the analytic computer studies."

Feltus was responsible for safety and transient analysis for two nuclear plants and later for two other plants. "I set up computer simulations for accident scenarios to study how the reactor would perform during various events and problems."

The nuclear engineering department at Pennsylvania State University is Feltus's domain. She's an assistant professor with research interests in nuclear safety analysis, kinetics, fuel management and reactor transient simulations.

Gordon Verdin chose to work in the nuclear power field during his last year of university.

"I worked in the summer after my third year doing fossil plant testing [with] the largest utility in North America. During that summer I had the opportunity to tour the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, which was under construction," he says.

"It was the most awesome facility I had ever seen and I knew I wanted to be in that field."

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