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Session 2177

Supporting Graduate Students: A Catalog of Opportunities

Audeen W. Fentiman The Ohio State University

Introduction

Finding support for graduate students in Nuclear Engineering can be a challenge. Many students are supported as Graduate Research Associates (GRA) on faculty projects, and some serve as Graduate Teaching Associates (GTA) helping to teach undergraduate nuclear engineering courses. As enrollments in Nuclear Engineering programs grow, the number of promising students can exceed the number of traditional GRA and GTA positions available. There are, however, a number of other alternatives to the standard funding mechanisms for graduate students. These include GRA and GTA positions in other departments, scholarships and fellowships, internships, funding from organizations focused on increasing diversity, and funding through international agencies. Specific examples of each are provided in the remaining sections of this paper.

Research and Teaching Associateships with Other Departments

Nuclear Engineering is a very broad field. It involves the application of equipment and techniques developed in other fields, and many other disciplines benefit from the application of nuclear science and technology. There have always been some collaborative efforts between nuclear engineering faculty and those from other disciplines. Recently, the Department of Energy has funded several INIE (Innovations in Nuclear Infrastructure and Education) consortia with one primary goal being to increase utilization of university research reactors. Members of the consortia are encouraged to collaborate with faculty in other disciplines at their own university and with faculty from other universities in the region. While faculty from these other disciplines will generally want to fund their own students, in some cases, they do not have students with the necessary expertise and need a nuclear engineering student. Departments where nuclear engineers may find potential collaborators include agriculture, food science, environmental science, medicine, veterinary medicine, biology, geology, astronomy, physics, and chemistry, not to mention a variety of other engineering disciplines.

Nuclear Engineering programs at some universities offer only graduate degrees. Students in their programs typically have a number of different undergraduate degrees. Examples are mechanical, electrical, chemical, or materials engineering, physics, mathematics, and sometimes chemistry. These students can serve as teaching associates for the discipline in which they have their undergraduate degree. Almost all engineering students are in a position to serve as GTAs in mathematics or beginning physics or computer science courses. While those departments generally like to hire their own graduate students to serve as GTAs, they sometimes offer a large number of undergraduate service courses and need additional help. Nuclear Engineering Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education

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Fentiman, A. (2004, June), Supporting Graduate Students: A Catalog Of Opportunities Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--13075