I am a research nuclear engineer at Argonne National Laboratory.

How did I get here?

When I was a kid, I liked doing puzzles and solving problems, and was pretty good at math. I majored in physics in college because I enjoyed the subject – lots of problem solving, and no long boring reading assignments (although I had some of those in my other classes).

I was drafted during the Vietnam war, and joined the Navy as a Nuclear Power Officer Candidate. (This program is still available now, only better because it will just about pay for your entire education.)The Navy turned me into a nuclear engineer, which for me was just applied physics. If you can understand physics, you have a big head start in engineering. Anyway, I served on a nuclear-powered submarine for about 3 years. I had several jobs, but the most interesting one was supervising the 10 people who operated the nuclear reactor, the propulsion system, the electricity system, and the fresh water distilling system. In the process, I learned some chemistry, materials science, how to do a safety analysis, and how to be a leader. This is a great program, either for officers (college grads) or enlisted folks (high school grads). To qualify, you have to be pretty good in science and math, but the Navy will teach you everything you need to know.

After my shipboard assignment, I went to graduate school in nuclear engineering. I thought about physics, but there was more money in nuclear engineering and the subject was just as interesting to me. I ended up getting a PhD, which took four years, during which the university paid me a small salary plus my tuition. The GI Bill education benefits doubled my income.

At Argonne, I have a main job and some part-time duties. My main job is to use a computer to simulate how the neutrons bounce around inside a nuclear reactor. This is important because the neutrons cause fission which heats the fuel. We have to know how hot each part of the fuel will get so we can design the cooling flow. We are working on future generations of reactors that will minimize nuclear waste and not emit any greenhouse gases. I work on some international committees, so I get to travel to some pretty nice foreign places like Paris, Tokyo, Prague, and I also travel to meetings in the US. I do a lot of team-type work, a lot of computer programming, graphing, and thinking. My part-time job is to supervise the 5 PC/Mac/Network Managers that my part of the lab relies on to keep our computing and networking systems operating.

Job prospects in nuclear engineering are great. It is already one of the highest-paid branches of engineering. There are a lot of older nuclear engineers nearing retirement and not enough replacements. Best of all, the US will soon be building a lot of nuclear power plants that will require engineers and operators, so the companies will have to pay well.

Roger Blomquist