Research

NSE’s Rose Lecture focuses on evolving role of nuclear technologies in meeting grand challenges, including the climate crisis The race is on to steer the world’s energy systems away from carbon, and “new nuclear technologies may point the way,” said William D....

Use of a novel electrolyte could allow advanced metal electrodes and higher voltages, boosting capacity and cycle life.

In a September 2020 essay in Nature Energy, three scientists posed several “grand challenges” — one of which was to find suitable materials for thermal energy storage devices that could be used in concert with solar energy systems. Fortuitously, Mingda Li —...

Notional rendering of a Nuclear Battery, including (from left to right) the instrumentation and control module, the reactor, shielding and heat transfer module, and the power module. In the midst of an economic downturn and unfolding climate crisis, Jacopo Buongiorno, TEPCO Professor...

Mr William D. Magwood IVDirector-General, OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) An Atomic Future: How We Got Here and the Major Challenges Ahead Thursday, March 4, 2021. 1:00PM to 2:30PM ESTZoom Webinar — Register to attendModerated by Professor Jacopo Buongiono, NSE Abstract The Nuclear Energy...

“I had always expected I’d stay at MIT for the four years, get my undergraduate degree at the end and probably return to the UK.” Richard Ibekwe recalls his early assumptions about his academic path at MIT. Now he is a nuclear...

One of India’s largest commercial and research nuclear reactor facilities lies just south of Arunkumar Seshadri’s hometown of Chennai, India. It was there, during a high school field trip, that the seeds of his interest in nuclear power were planted. “We learned...

Koroush Shirvan, Ben Forget and other MIT researchers show that deep reinforcement learning can be used to design more efficient nuclear reactors.

NSE alums Pablo Rodriguez-Fernandez PhD’19 and Katia Paramonova ’13 have been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 lists in for 2021. As an MIT graduate student under the direction of Professor Anne White, Rodriguez-Fernandez became intrigued by a fusion research mystery that had remained...

A quantum effect in ‘topological semimetals’ demonstrated by MIT researchers could allow for the utilization of an untapped energy source. More than two-thirds of the energy used worldwide is ultimately ejected as “waste heat.” Within that reservoir of discarded energy lies a...