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Idaho National Laboratory (INL) postdoctoral researcher Kaustubh Bawane attributes much of his career success so far to a 2018 Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) award he received while working on his doctoral thesis at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.The NSUF access award allowed Bawane to irradiate the nuclear fuel cladding materials he was studying, use cutting-edge instruments often unavailable to university students and ultimately secure his two-year postdoctoral position at INL that started in February 2020. To add to the journey, Bawane was recently awarded a second NSUF project that will allow him to utilize Texas A&M University's Accelerator...

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The TEM group leader for INL, He manages the two TEMs in INL's Irradiated Materials and Characterization Laboratory, and it continually making sure that his group's expertise is cutting edge, but also that users have access to that expertise via NSUF.

As a Nuclear Science User Facilities instrument scientist, Lingfeng He works with more than 20 NSUF users each year on the microstructural characterization of irradiated nuclear fuels and materials at the Irradiated Materials and Characterization Laboratory at Idaho National Laboratory. This work ultimately helps discover and create more efficient and cost-effective improvements for the next generation nuclear reactors. He assists users, often students, develop NSUF proposals ranging from studying irradiated structural materials to nuclear fuels and nuclear waste associated materials. Once awarded, He works with the users on experimental characterization at IMCL. Most recently, He helped prepare nine NSUF proposals with eight accepted. “I like to work with the...

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Sridharan's research team put the NSUF's first material samples into the ATR, launching a new era of research into the behaviors of fuels and materials in a nuclear reactor environment.

Professor Kumar Sridharan and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison helped kickstart the Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF), formerly known as the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) National Scientific User Facility in 2007. The team put the organization’s first material samples into the ATR, launching a new era of research into the behaviors of fuels and materials in a nuclear reactor environment. His research partners included university colleagues Lizhen Tan (now at Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Yong Yang (now at the University of Florida, Gainesville), and Heather MacLean Chichester of Idaho National Laboratory, where the Advanced Test Reactor is located. A decade...

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