Second year ARFC graduate student, Andrei Rykhlevskii, was recognized this year by the American Nuclear Society at the national level with a 2017 John and Muriel Landis Scholarship. This award, given by the ANS NEED Committee, consists of a monetary award, a certificate, and placement in the online archive of recipients on the ANS honors and awards website.

This award recognizes students with exceptional potential in nuclear science and engineering who also pursue graduate school despite greater than average financial constraints. We applaud the committee’s selection of Andrei, who is simultaneously an exceptionally promising graduate student, a husband, and a father of two.

Andrei joined ARFC in Fall 2016, and has already made significant achievements in graduate research. In particular, Andrei has completed a full core neutronic model of the Molten Salt Breeder Reactor with unprecedented geometric detail. Additionally, he conducted an accompanying online fuel reprocessing analysis for that reactor. For this work, Andrei consulted technically with Prof. Huff as well as the larger Serpent 2 neutronics simulation community. His dedication has resulted in a strong foundation for future multi-physics and fuel cycle analysis of molten salt breeder reactor designs more broadly. This work culminated in two conference paper submissions to the 2017 American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting.

ARFC is lucky to have an accomplished group of students and we are particularly delighted to congratulate Andrei on this award. It recognizes something of great importance to our mission : the humanity and dedication required to pursue an advanced degree in nuclear engineering.