In September 2010, six TAMU students from the Nuclear Engineering department, including two NSSPI students, travelled to Moscow, Russia for a 2-week long internship at the National Research Nuclear University’s Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI). The internship was part of the Joint U.S.-Russia Educational Program on Advanced Energy Technologies, a three-year-long collaboration with the University of Maryland funded by the U.S. Department of Education, which focuses on increasing interaction between U.S. universities and MEPhI through workshops, student exchanges and faculty visits, and collaborative research projects.
NSSPI students Braden Goddard and Matt Sternat represented Dr. William Charlton’s nuclear nonproliferation research group, Megan Pritchard and Marie Cuvelier represented Dr. Pavel Tsvetkov’s advanced energy systems development research group, and Damien Lebrun-Grandie and Bruno Turcksin represented Dr. Jean Ragusa’s numerical methods research group. Dr. Alexander Solodov, NSSPI Research Engineer and Visiting Professor in the Nuclear Engineering Department, led the group of students.
During their internship, students visited the MEPhI Department of Theoretical and Experimental Reactor Physics and discussed their research projects with a group of students and faculty members from MEPhI. Each of the groups from TAMU gave briefings on their respective research areas and discussed further interactions and collaborations with MEPhI students and faculty. Students had an opportunity to visit the MEPhI research reactor, the Scientific Education Center, the Nanotechnology Center, and a number of other departments at MEPhI. The full cultural experience was rounded off with activities ranging from visiting Russian museums and landmarks to playing a friendly US versus Russia soccer match and an arm wrestling contest.