Zack Fuerst, a senior, is among several nuclear engineering students in Purdue’s Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) program. He will join the Navy as a commissioned officer after graduation in December 2017 and plans to use his nuclear engineering degree to focus on nuclear safeguards and security. “Working to make the Navy better one officer at a time and one vessel at a time is the best we can do as Boilermakers and Sailors,” Fuerst says. 

Thomas Duane, a NE sophomore, plans to commission as a submarine warfare officer and attend the Navy’s nuclear power and prototype training programs. Ultimately, he hopes to design and operate submarine reactors, the systems that power the ships. “I am fascinated by the great good we can do with properly applied nuclear engineering, and hope to be able to use what I learn in my degree program to change the world for the better,” he says.

Fuerst, Duane, and junior Rokas Venckus are among the group of current students following in the footsteps of NE alumnus James F. McCarthy Jr. (BS ’79) who served in the Navy from 1979 to 2007 as a nuclear trained surface warfare officer. He is now assistant deputy chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV N8B) Integration of Capabilities and Resources Office of the Chief of Naval Operation. Venckus is in the Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate (NUPOC) program, which provides students with a full-time salary while they are in school.

Purdue’s NROTC students are mentored by NE Professor Allen Garner, who was on active duty from 1997 to 2003. He served aboard the submarine, USS Pasadena, from 1999 to 2002. Garner, an assistant professor who is also a Commander in the Navy Reserves, was drawn to nuclear engineering as the son of a Naval officer and by his fascination with Tom Clancy novels.

As a reservist, Garner is the commanding officer for the Navy’s SurgeMain Gulf, which provides depot level support to the Navy's four public shipyards to ensure that ships get out to sea on time and on budget. As a researcher, he studies fundamental pulsed power and plasma applications related to directed energy applications for radar and weapons systems. “We are hoping to focus on better understanding the physics of high power microwave devices and design novel high power devices that are more compact for shipboard and aircraft applications,” he says.

Graduate student Andrew Fairbanks (BS ’15) began working with Garner as an undergraduate at Purdue. This summer, he will intern with the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, on directed energy projects for design and testing. “I would like to be able to make these systems more reliable and higher powered. The systems can also be used for fusion reactors to help keep the fusion reaction going. I hope to be able to create devices to aid in a more energy efficient power source,” Fairbanks says.

NE graduate Tom Adams (MA ’10, PhD ’14), who works for the Navy as a scientist at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, is also working on energy efficient power sources. He has renewed his ties with Purdue as a member of an interdisciplinary Purdue and Naval Research Laboratory research team. Adams is teaming with NE Professor Shripad Revankar and faculty from across Purdue to investigate techniques to predict lithium-ion battery failure as a function of number of charge-discharge cycles, operation temperature, impedance rise and mechanical loads.

John Weaver, a sophomore, is combining his interests in environmental studies and nuclear engineering to focus on the energy applications of nuclear science and technology. In addition to plans for a future as a nuclear propulsion officer on board a Navy vessel, Weaver hopes to help correct public misconceptions about nuclear power. Weaver is in the Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate (NUPOC) program, which provides students with a full-time salary while they are in school.

“Nuclear science and technology has the potential to supply the world's energy needs,” Weaver says. “The field also has great potential beyond solving the energy crisis, but its applications are widely met with ignorance and misguided fear by the general public that hamper the influence of nuclear technology. This frustrated me, and studying nuclear engineering appealed to me as a means of fixing this issue.”

Article written by Linda Carrick Thomas