Abstract:
The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) was established in Dayton, Ohio in 1919. Since 1956, AFIT has granted more than 15,000 master's degrees and 300 doctorates. Within the Graduate School of Engineering and Management the Department of Engineering Physics provides education and research at both the M.S. and Ph.D. levels through a variety of programs including directed energy weapons, nuclear weapon effects, counterproliferation, space physics, remote sensing, and electronic and photonic materials. The Department offers courses of study leading to the Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in the areas of Applied Physics, Nuclear Engineering, Electro-Optics, and Materials Science.

The Nuclear Engineering Program at AFIT provides each student with a broad foundation in nuclear technology and engineering at the graduate level. Research in Nuclear Engineering at AFIT falls into three major areas: Nuclear Weapon Effects, Nuclear Weapon Physics and Nuclear Forensics.  Nuclear Weapon Effects and Nuclear Weapon Physics research areas include neutral particle transport methods, blast modeling, radioactive source term from weapons, fallout transport and dose estimates, x-ray simulation modeling, optical effects measurement and modeling, radiation effects in electronics, and radiation hardening.   Nuclear Forensics includes a combination of these research areas as well as radiation detection in an effort to determine the originator of a weapon before or after detonation.

Current research at AFIT into the detection of neutron radiation includes the development and implementation of novel semiconducting materials in diode-like heterostructure devices or conversion layers. Ongoing work includes testing and modeling of gadolinium based detectors using Gd-doped HfO2 and Eu2O3, Gd2O3, GdN, and Gd-doped GaN as well boron and lithium based materials such as semiconducting boron carbide and lithium tetraborate (Li2B4O7).

About the Speaker:
John McClory received the B.S. degree in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, in 1984, the M.S. degree in physics from Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, in 1993, and the Ph.D. degree in nuclear engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, in 2008.

He has been an active duty Army officer since 1984 with duty as an armor officer and as a nuclear and counterproliferation officer in United States, Europe, and the Middle East. He was an instructor and assistant professor of physics at the United States Military Academy from 1993 to 1996. He is currently an assistant professor of nuclear engineering at the Air Force Institute of Technology assigned to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.