UT Knoxville's American Nuclear Society chapter wins Glasstone Award

The University of Tennessee Knoxville (UT Knoxville) said on Monday that the American Nuclear Society (ANS) honored the student chapter from UT Knoxville with the Samuel Glasstone Award.

The award recognizes the highest-performing student chapters of the ANS. The chapter at UT Knoxville has approximately 40 members.

The university's report said the nuclear engineering program at the university has seen significant growth, and assistant professor Steve Skutnik, the student chapter's faculty adviser, said the program has risen to be the fourth-highest-ranked program in the country.

“I think this shows that we are becoming a recognized leader for what we do,” Skutnik said. “The ANS makes its selection on the passion, influence and activity of the groups, so to be selected is huge.”

Collaborative work between the university and Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education gives students and faculty research opportunities with UT Knoxville.

The student chapter's president, Gregory Meinweiser, said the recognition from this award acts as a confirmation of the work the group has done.

“A lot of really hard work went into us getting to this point,” Meinweiser said. “They didn’t just simply pick us because we’d never been picked; they did it because they saw the things we’d done, the efforts we’d made."