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.