About Me
Well, a lot of stuff on this page probably isn't too interesting to most, but it's mostly so that I can remember. To give an overview of what I've done, here it is.
College Majors and Minors:
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University of Tennessee
PhD in Nuclear and Radiological Engineering - 2008 Tenative
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Minor in Statistics
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Masters in Nuclear Engineering - December 2006
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Georgia Institute of Technology
Bachelors in Nuclear and Radiological Engineering - May 2005
Work:
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At Tennessee, I have two jobs. I am a quarter time Graduate Teaching Assistant and a quarter time Graduate Research Assistant (classes are the other half for grad students here). Not all students get to have diverse jobs like I have, so I consider myself pretty lucky in that aspect. I enjoy the teaching and the research, so I have the best of both.
As a teaching assistant, I help teach the junior and senior level radiation detection and measurement labs. We focus on the basics of radiation detection using a variety of detectors and source types. I tend to push the students to become familiar with ORTEC's Maestro32 software for basic spectroscopy using gamma, beta, alpha, and neutron sources. I also try to explain the physics behind how the detector actually works, since many times students forget that the labs are supposed to focus not only on results, but how the equipment works as well.
For my research hours, I have worked on quite a variety of projects dealing with radiation detection, spectral unfolding, fuel cycle analysis, and repository heat load analysis. Having a range of projects leaves little chance for being bored of too specialized. One ongoing project is fuel cycle and repository heat load analysis. For this, I have used large nuclear codes such as DANESS and SCALE with some homebrew Matlab to handle a monte carlo approach to isotopic concentrations in spent fuel. Another project has been with digital pulse shape discrimination where we used a fast data acquisition system to record the output pulses from a liquid scintillator when exposed to a californium-252 source. The pulse traces were then analyzed and manipulated in another homebrew Matlab program that used a derived statistical method to classify the pulse origin (either neutron or gamma). Other projects are in the works, but have not been published so the won't be discussed here.
Contact Information:
Email: jpresto/4/@/utk.edu (Spam avoidance: Remove applicable slashes)
