Ernesto Ordonez Ferrer

Center for Nuclear Security Science and Policy Initiatives

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station

Ernesto Ordonez Ferrer

Ernesto_Ordonez Ferrer_profile_picture

NSSPI Graduate
Graduate Certificate in Nuclear Security

M.S., 2021

Research Group: Combatting Nuclear Terrorism

Short Bio:

Ernesto Ordonez-Ferrer is a NSSPI graduate who earned his M.S. in nuclear engineering with a nonproliferation specialization in May 2021. He worked with Dr. Craig Marianno on his Master’s thesis project involving Polyvinyl Toluene (PVT) scintillators. His research focuses on characterizing and tracking the onset of internal fogging in PVT used in radiation portal monitors (RPM) after being subjected to environments with varying temperatures and humidity. A light-intensity measuring circuit was developed to track the fogging and ultimately alert RPM operators when to perform maintenance on the equipment or replace the detector altogether after a specific degree of degradation has occurred. Ordonez-Ferrer earned his B.S. in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M University in May of 2017. In 2020, Ordonez-Ferrer was awarded a Seaborg Institute Graduate Research Fellowship to study at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Ordonez is currently working as a staff engineer at IB3 Global Solutions in Oak Ridge, Tennessee with their test and evaluation team.

NSSPI Publications:

  1. E.A. Ordonez Ferrer, "Characterizing Polyvinyl Toluene Scintillator1s State of Health Using Light Readings from a Photomultiplier Tube", Thesis, Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX (2021).

  2. C.M. Marianno, E.A. Ordonez, J.W. King, R. Suh, "Development of an optical sensor for measuring opacity changes in polyvinyl toluene scintillators", Radiation Physics and Chemistry, 179, (2021).rn

  3. E. Ordonez, C. Marianno, "Characterizing the State of Health of Polyvinyl Toluene Scintillators Using Light Reading from Photomultiplier Tube", 61st Annual Meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM), Virtual Conference, 12-16 July 2020.

  4. E. Ordonez and C. Marianno, "Development of an Optical Sensor to Measure Opacity Changes in Polyvinyl Toluene Scintillators", Poster. 64th Annual Meeting of the Health Physics Society, Orlando, Florida, 7-11 July 2019.

  5. J. King, S. Chirayath, E. Aboud, V. Bautista, P. Behne, H. Boo, R. Brownfield, J. Chisholm, K. Cook, A. Edwin, H. Kistle, P. O’Neal, E. Ordonez, M. Ramirez, S. Ricketts, R. Suh, "Safety Evaluation of a Spent Fuel Dry-Storage Canister with Various Fill Materials", Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, 120 (2019).