Short Bio:
Xiaodong Tang earned his master’s degree in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M University in December 2021. Working with NSSPI Faculty Fellow Dr. Shikha Prasad, he conducted research to evaluate safeguards instrumentation for the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR). His research focused on how best to measure the burnup of the pebbles in the PBMR for safeguards purposes. He developed a design for an extremely fast (sub-nanosecond) detection system to perform high efficiency gamma-spectroscopy for very high burnup pebbles.
Before becoming a NSSPI student, Tang received his bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M a minor in radiological health engineering. During his undergraduate studies, he was enrolled in the Nuclear Criticality Safety program in the Texas A&M Department of Nuclear Engineering, which is a collaboration between Texas A&M, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Y-12 National Security Complex. The program focuses on introducing various aspects of the nuclear criticality profession to build a pipeline from the university to the national laboratory complex. After successfully defending his thesis, Tang took a position in nuclear criticality safety engineering for Savannah River Nuclear Solutions.
NSSPI Publications:
- X. Tang, "Barium Fluoride (BaF2) Scintillation Detectors for Fast Timing Measurements in Pebble-Bed Reactor Design", M.S. Thesis, Nuclear Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX (2021).