UF was awarded funding for Advancing the University of Florida Training Reactor (UFTR) as a Hub for Nuclear Education, Research, and Outreach led by Profs. Ira Harkness, Kyle C. Hartig, and Assel Aitkaliyeva. The U.S. DOE’s Reactor Sharing and Outreach Program offers funding to U.S. colleges and universities with nuclear research reactors to share resources with institutions that lack such facilities to promote nuclear energy education. Read the news article posted on the Department of Materials Science and Engineering’s website here: https://mse.ufl.edu/shaping-the-future-of-nuclear-energy/

Major activities in this program include:

• Sponsored visits to UF for faculty and students from participating User Institutions including Florida International University (FIU), University of Central Florida, and the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez.
• Summer K-12 Teacher Workshops (applications for Summer 2025 open until February 28, 2025)
• Youth organization outreach and education

Future online resources that will be provided via this website include:

• Virtual University of Florida Training Reactor tour
• Modules containing instructional material, acquired data, and analyses from experimental campaigns conducted at UFTR for inclusion in curricula at other institutions.