Midway through this year, MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) senior Sean Lowder traveled to Washington, to interview for a job. He had three technical interviews scheduled, plus a meeting with the admiral in charge of nuclear engineering for the U.S. Navy. They’d told him that his entire transcript was fair game for questioning, so Lowder had hit the books to prepare.
Among those classes was one about nuclear reactor physics and the study of how neutrons can interact with materials in a reactor and change the reactor’s energy output. “It was one of the most challenging courses, but also one of the most interesting,” Lowder says.
He got the job he was gunning for. After graduation he’ll relocate to D.C. and join the engineering team responsible for the designs of nuclear reactors used to power the U.S. Navy’s fleet of submarines and aircraft carriers.
Just a few years ago, before he came to MIT, Lowder didn’t know much about engineering. But an...
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