Dear Friends, Alumna & Alumni,
Welcome to the Fall Semester at NSE! The excitement is palpable here in
Building 24, where we are welcoming 22 new undergraduate and graduate
students into the Department. I had the pleasure of addressing the
incoming graduate students at their orientation, to tell some of the
amazing stories I had learned since becoming Department Head. These new
students are ready to embark on a journey of intellectual discovery at
MIT, and I am so honored and humbled to be leading their home
department.
I was appointed NSE Department Head
by Dean Anantha Chandrakasan on July 1, 2019, and in these few short
months since have very much enjoyed meeting with faculty, staff,
students and also some of you for stimulating discussions about new
directions for the department.
At the time of my transition, I appointed Prof. Ben Forget as the Associate Department Head
in NSE. Ben is a leader of the MIT Computational Reactor Physics Group —
which focuses on developing new ways of streamlining the complex
software needed to simulate the fission nuclear reactor core, in order
to better understand how to develop new generations of improved
reactors. As Associate Head, Ben will focus on expanding computational
science and engineering activities within NSE, including leading NSE
engagement with the new Schwarzman College of Computing (SCoC).
Prof Jacopo Buongiorno who stepped down as Associate Department Head is part of a new team
that will lead the MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory (NRL). The leadership
team which includes Gordon Kohse and Lance Snead will implement a new
operations model at the NRL that will allow for closer scientific
research collaboration with Department of Nuclear Science and
Engineering and other MIT researchers.
More broadly, NSE faculty members are starting a busy semester
re-energized by our end of summer retreat, where we kicked off a new
long-range strategic planning process. This process will be
comprehensive, and will play out over the next year; you will
undoubtedly hear from us more as we reach out to all of our community
and stakeholders for input on new opportunities for NSE.
We have a great lineup of events this Fall, one of which is part of the new series — the MIT Climate Symposia
— kicks off this semester. The six-symposium series will examine the
urgent challenge of climate change. NSE’s Prof. Jacopo Buongiorno will
lead the Dec 4th symposium on “Decarbonizing the Electricity
Sector”. I invite you to come and visit us and spend some time enjoying
the community in NSE and around MIT. If you find yourself on campus,
please stop by NSE headquarters anytime.
Best wishes,
Anne
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