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Returning summer intern Crystal Green recognized by ANS
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Crystal Green handles a mock non-radioactive fuel assembly, as part of the hands-on training in nuclear criticality safety. Photo by Jamie Douglas/LLNL
Crystal Green, a summer intern in the Nuclear Criticality Safety Division (NCSD), has been awarded a $1,500 scholarship by the American Nuclear Society's (ANS) Columbia, S.C. Chapter.
Green is working on her bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering with a minor in physics at South Carolina State University, and will graduate in 2014. This is her second summer working as an intern at LLNL.
Green, who is originally from Augusta, Ga., traveled cross-country to work with her mentor Dave Heinrichs in the Minority Serving Institutions program when she was a freshman. Last summer her work focused on using COG, an LLNL-developed Monte-Carlo multi-transport code to model a French reactor, SILENE. This work helped her become one of the first place winners at the Student Poster Symposium.
Currently, Green is performing various criticality calculations using COG for the Lab's new Inherently Safe Subcritical Assembly (ISSA). "The LLNL Nuclear Criticality Safety Division has developed a training center to offer hands-on training to demonstrate various nuclear criticality, reactor physics, and neutron kinetics through experimentation of the Inherently Safe Subcritical Assembly," Green said.
ISSA uses a surplus of highly enriched uranium fuel configured in a tank of water and gives students the opportunity to handle fissile material and perform various experiments under the supervision of LLNL instructors.
This experience has allowed her to perform simulations of both fixed source and criticality calculations, among other high-level work experience. The ISSA COG models will give NCSD framework for various experiments to be conducted at the ISSA training center and can later be utilized in comparison to the measured data from the training center.
"I love the fact that LLNL caters so much to learning, science and above all contentment," Green says. "The Lab environment is very pleasant." She notes that her most valuable lessons have come from research. "Sometimes things don't work out the way initially envisioned but you have to keep a positive attitude to work through the difficulties," she says.
While she's not attending activities and seminars at work, she likes to shop, and has enjoyed sky-diving, hiking, parasailing, jet skis, and water rafting during her time in California. She hopes to attend Georgia Tech University to continue her nuclear and radiological engineering studies at the master's and Ph.D. levels.
Green is working on her bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering with a minor in physics at South Carolina State University, and will graduate in 2014. This is her second summer working as an intern at LLNL.
Green, who is originally from Augusta, Ga., traveled cross-country to work with her mentor Dave Heinrichs in the Minority Serving Institutions program when she was a freshman. Last summer her work focused on using COG, an LLNL-developed Monte-Carlo multi-transport code to model a French reactor, SILENE. This work helped her become one of the first place winners at the Student Poster Symposium.
Currently, Green is performing various criticality calculations using COG for the Lab's new Inherently Safe Subcritical Assembly (ISSA). "The LLNL Nuclear Criticality Safety Division has developed a training center to offer hands-on training to demonstrate various nuclear criticality, reactor physics, and neutron kinetics through experimentation of the Inherently Safe Subcritical Assembly," Green said.
ISSA uses a surplus of highly enriched uranium fuel configured in a tank of water and gives students the opportunity to handle fissile material and perform various experiments under the supervision of LLNL instructors.
This experience has allowed her to perform simulations of both fixed source and criticality calculations, among other high-level work experience. The ISSA COG models will give NCSD framework for various experiments to be conducted at the ISSA training center and can later be utilized in comparison to the measured data from the training center.
"I love the fact that LLNL caters so much to learning, science and above all contentment," Green says. "The Lab environment is very pleasant." She notes that her most valuable lessons have come from research. "Sometimes things don't work out the way initially envisioned but you have to keep a positive attitude to work through the difficulties," she says.
While she's not attending activities and seminars at work, she likes to shop, and has enjoyed sky-diving, hiking, parasailing, jet skis, and water rafting during her time in California. She hopes to attend Georgia Tech University to continue her nuclear and radiological engineering studies at the master's and Ph.D. levels.
