INL National University Consortium – Annual Report 5 The Ohio State University Based in Columbus, Ohio, The Ohio State University is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as 16th among the nation’s best public universities. In FY- 18, several students from Ohio State came on site, including Bill Chuirazzi and Kelly McCary, two INL Graduate Fellows who are now at INL completing their doctorate research in Idaho Falls. Additionally, in collaboration with INL, Ohio State participated in five research projects including three externally funded projects and INL Laboratory-directed Research and Development (LDRD) projects. One project, a Nuclear Energy University Program project, Big Data for Operation and Maintenance Cost Reduction, is developing a “first-of-a-kind framework” for integrating big data capabilities into the current fleet of nuclear power plants to further optimize plant operation and maintenance. Learn more about Ohio State research projects on page 10. University of New Mexico Founded in 1889 in Albuquerque, the University of New Mexico is the state’s flagship university with more than 200 degree programs and over 26,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Two of these students, Weston Tice and Katelyn Morales, came to INL as interns in summer 2018 and finished as full-time employees. In addition, UNM and INL collaborated on several research projects, including one related to INL’s Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility. As part of an INL LDRD project with Nicolas Woolstenhulme, UNM researchers Youho Lee, Patrick McDaniel and Nima Fathi focused on designing an advanced detector to measure the radiation fields in the TREAT reactor. Learn more about this research project on page 9. North Carolina State University Located in Raleigh, North Carolina State University was established as the state’s land-grant institution focused on agriculture and engineering. Now over 130 years after its founding, NCSU has more than 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs through 65 departments with faculty researchers collaborating with INL on six externally funded projects, including one from the National Science Foundation. The NSF project, “An open source multiphysics platform to advance fundamental understanding of plasma physics and enable impactful application of plasma systems,” is working to advance plasma-based technology to “enable greater sustainability in the future food, energy, and water nexus.” An additional part of NCSU’s collaboration with INL comes in the form of students. In FY-18, three NCSU students came to Idaho Falls to finish their doctorate research at INL’s modern facilities as part of the INL Graduate Fellowship program. Learn more about NCSU’s INL Graduate Fellows on page 19. Oregon State University As the state’s land, sun, space and sea grant institution, Oregon State University has a rich legacy of making lasting research impacts such as inventing the artificial heart valve, computer mouse, and Leatherman tool. In FY-18, out of the five National University Consortium (NUC) universities, Oregon State had the most collaborative research projects with INL (15) as well as the most students participating in a joint research project or coming on site as interns (48). In addition, Oregon State expanded its joint appointee list, adding Mitch Meyer, an INL program director, as an outgoing joint appointee. Even before this partnership was formalized, Meyer collaborated with Oregon State to develop a unique course taught by INL researchers on topics related to post-irradiation examinations of nuclear materials. Learn more about this unique course on page 21.