Dim Udochukwu Odera
Dim Udochukwu Odera was born in Zaria in Kaduna state, Nigeria. He received a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, in 2010. As part of requirements to graduate, he successfully completed a project which studied the possibility of improving the efficiency of electrical appliances by implementing the concept of pulse width modulation (PWM).
In 2014, he received a M.S.E degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His master’s thesis was focused on applying the computational capabilities in MCNP to performing burn-up and depletion calculations on the UMass Lowell research reactor core. The thesis further analyzed the isotope inventory of an average used nuclear fuel to obtain the concentration of certain indicator isotopes and correlating this to the plutonium content and burn-up levels.
At the moment, Dim is performing various researches pertaining to nuclear security and safeguards as well as investigating the potentials of a combined Uranium-Thorium fuel cycle becoming an accepted alternative to the current uranium fuel cycles, for the purpose of improved proliferation resistance and longer burnup.
Christopher Johnson
Chris Johnson received his Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Union College in 2012. As an undergraduate, he determined the content of aerosol samples from campus buildings using particle-induced x-ray emission (PIXE) analysis at the Union College Ion Beam Analysis Laboratory (UCIBAL).
Now in his third year at UMass Lowell, Chris has promoted interdisciplinary collaboration between the physics and engineering departments by becoming a member of INSSL. He is currently working to characterize the thermal column neutron beam at the UMass Lowell research reactor in pursuit of a Master of Science degree.