Missouri S&T is home to the state’s first nuclear reactor. Operational since 1961 and one of only three nuclear reactors in Missouri, the S&T reactor is used for research, onsite tours, education, including distance courses for universities that have no reactor, and practical training. S&T nuclear engineering students can obtain their operator’s license by operating the reactor through the university’s training program. At full power (200 kilowatts), the pool reactor’s core produces some 5.4 trillion fissions per second. The resulting energy creates a blue glow in the pool. The greater the number of fissions, the more intense the glow.

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Erin Hayden and Matthew Garger

Erin Hayden and Matthew Garger

Although Erin Hayden and Matthew Garger were both students at S&T for an overlapping year, they didn’t meet until the…

Y2K debugger

Y2K debugger

As the clock ticked down to the year 2000, computer scientists around the world were fretting about the so-called “Y2K…

For the love of circuits

For the love of circuits

Emily Hernandez, who earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 2016, began recruiting minorities to STEM fields even before…

He even has a spaceship named after him

He even has a spaceship named after him

In 1967, Farouk El-Baz, was appointed by NASA as secretary of lunar landing site selection and chairman of astronaut training…

Non-stop innovation

Non-stop innovation

Dan Scott, a 1970 metallurgical engineering graduate, holds more than 100 patents and has dozens more patents pending. The technical…

Matthew Harris and Grace Lupo

Matthew Harris and Grace Lupo

During a biostatistics lab in the fall of 2017, Matthew Harris saw Grace Lupo sitting by herself and invited her…