Abstract: While the United States (as well as most European countries and Canada) halted construction of new nuclear power plants and considerably reduced research and development in this field in the last decade, nuclear energy capacity has steadily increased in far-eastern Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Large-scale nuclear development has also started in China and other Pacific region countries. In the decades to come the world will face considerable energy and environmental challenges that cannot be met successfully without nuclear energy. In this presentation, I will briefly analyze the present energy situation in the United States, and particularly in California. I will also discuss the current status of nuclear energy in the USA, and the new technologies that will enable a brighter future for nuclear energy.

Three slide files for Professor Vujic's talk are available here, here and here.

Jasmina L. Vujic Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering Department of Nuclear Engineering University of California, Berkeley Areas of Expertise: Reactor physics. Advanced nuclear reactor analysis and design. Development of modern numerical methods in radiation transport (collision probability, method of characteristics, Monte Carlo). Optimization techniques for vector and parallel processing. Shielding, radiation protection, and health physics. Medical application of radiation in cancer diagnosis and therapy, BNCT.

Education:

Ph.D. (1990) Nuclear Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
MS (1987) Nuclear Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
MS (1984) Engineering Physics, University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
BSEE (1977) Electrical and Nuclear Engineering, University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

Professional Experience:

1998 - Present: Associate Professor, Department of Nuclear Engineering and (1995-present) the Joint UCB/UCSF Bioengineering Graduate Group, University of California, Berkeley (UCB).
1992 - 1998: Assistant Professor, Department of Nuclear Engineering, UCB.
1999 - Present: Director, the Davis-Etcheverry Computing Facility at UCB, which provides computing resources to students and faculty of four engineering departments (ME, NE, CE, and IEOR).
1992 - Present: Director, Advanced Nuclear Engineering Computing Laboratory, UCB.
1989 - 1992: Research Staff, Reactor Analysis Division, Argonne National Laboratory.
1985 - 1989: Research Assistant, Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
1977 - 1985: Researcher/Lecturer at the Nuclear Sciences Institute, Vinca, Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

Professional Achievements and Awards:

Jasmina Vujic is an internationally recognized expert in the advanced method development for reactor analysis and design, as well as for medical applications. Her general geometry collision probability code GTRAN2 has been licensed to General Electric and Toshiba. Also, the GTRAN2 code was chosen by the Department of Energy as the computational methodology for assembly design of the MHTGR core for tritium production. A new version of the code, MAGGENTA has been incorporated into the MAGG-SCALE package, and is being used by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She has also developed CHAR, a general geometry method of characteristics code.

Dr. Vujic is a member of the American Nuclear Society and has held various executive positions in several divisions of ANS. She was a member of many Scientific and Technical Program Committees for domestic and international conferences. She also organized one international conference, several workshops, several special sessions, and was a session chairman at numerous domestic and international conferences. Since 1992, Dr. Vujic has given over 60 invited presentations/lectures in the U.S. and abroad (China, Japan, S. Korea, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Mexico, Germany). She is a reviewer for Nuclear Technology, Nuclear Engineering and Design, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Journal of Computational Physics, and for DOE.

Dr. Vujic has received many awards including: the 1996 Prytanean Faculty Award at the University of California at Berkeley; the Best Paper Award, at the 1991 ANS Winter Meeting in San Francisco, CA; the 1991 Argonne National Laboratory Annual Exceptional Performance Award; the Best Program Award at the Int. Topl. Mtg. on Advances in Mathematics, Computations, and Reactor Physics, Pittsburgh, PA, in 1991; the 1989 Distinguished Achievement Award for outstanding work in Nuclear Engineering, College of Engineering, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; and the Exceptional Teaching Award, Nuclear Sciences Institute, Belgrade, Yugoslavia (1982). She is the holder of one patent and author of about 150 publications, including over 30 research papers published in leading archival journals, as well as several awarded papers. She has been a consultant for General Electric and Transware.