Their award includes the following citation: For their exemplary leadership, extraordinary efforts and dedication in establishing the first-of-its-kind in US history, a fully integrated all-digital nuclear reactor, leading to profound impacts on nuclear engineering education, research and existing and future reactor fleets.

Over the course of this multi-year effort, Team PUR-1 has worked to upgrade the reactor’s power from 1 kW to 10 kW and devoted themselves to working with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (US NRC) to have PUR-1’s license amendment approved for 100% digital instrument and control (I&C) system, which was the first application of its kind for the US NRC. While this rigorous review process was going on, Team PUR-1 continued with their educational mission by holding undergraduate and graduate laboratory classes, leading tours, performing public education outreach on nuclear energy, and collaborating with researchers on and off our Purdue campus.

The School of Nuclear Engineering is incredibly proud of all the hard work Team PUR-1 has put into this long and challenging project. We can’t wait to see what they are able to achieve with the new capabilities of PUR-1.