UMR’s nuclear engineering department recently received more than $1 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy. The funds will be used to expand and improve the department’s teaching and research opportunities.
UMR will receive $1.2 million during a five-year period as part of the Innovations in Nuclear Infrastructure and Education (INIE) grant from the DOE. The grant will be used to invest in the UMR nuclear engineering program and nuclear reactor training while working with national laboratories and industry partners, says Dr. Arvind Kumar, program chair and professor of nuclear engineering at UMR.
The INIE grant furthers significant growth in the nuclear engineering program at UMR, says Kumar. With the funds from the DOE grant the department will be able to increase enrollment, hire an additional tenure-track faculty member, establish a new two-phase flow laboratory, develop a new research area in nuclear waste management, create a distance-learning program in V-Brick technology, and create an outreach program to assist under-represented institutions.
UMR also received an additional $243,000 in grants from the DOE for Nuclear Engineering Education Research (NEER), industry matching, nuclear reactor upgrades, and reactor sharing.