WNSA Underrepresented Nuclear Science and Engineering Scholarship Awardees Chosen

Story Posted: Mon, Jan 12, 2004

Todd Palmer, NERHP Associate Professor and Chairman of the Western Nuclear Science Alliance (WNSA) Scholarship Committee, announced winners of the WNSA Underrepresented Nuclear Science and Engineering Scholarships (NSE). Senior Kimberly Gambone, and Freshman Ceris Hamilton were notified December 10th, with senior Joonyub Jun being notified later. Gambone and Jun, as a seniors, will receive the maximum award for 2004 winter and spring terms, while Hamilton will receive a lesser sum with the possibility of continuing to receive the scholarship monies, in increasing amounts, if she continues satisfactory progress towards a Nuclear Engineering (NE) or Radiation Health Physics (RHP) degree.

The Underrepresented NSE scholarship is available to all female, African-American, American Indian, Alaskan Native, Asian, Asian-American, Hispanic, or Pacific Islander students who are studying full time and are in good academic standing. Students must also be making satisfactory progress towards a degree in NE or RHP at Oregon State University, and must be either a U.S. Citizen or a Resident Alien. The number of scholarships available is limited, but the student may be eligible to receive the award up to a limit of $14,000. This can go a long way to easing the burden of school costs. In addition to the money, students receiving the WNSA NSE scholarship will be assisted in securing summer internship appointments in the nuclear field. There is no deadline for application.

Remarking to Gambone and Hamilton in an email, Palmer said the students are “exactly the kind of students that we want graduating from our program, WNSA and Oregon State.”

Gambone, who will graduate at the end of the spring quarter, came into engineering and OSU in a slightly roundabout manner. First studying at Linn Benton Community College, Gambone declared a psychology major while she worked on core courses and tried to decide what she really wanted to do. After a break where she worked for a small semi-conductor business in the Atlanta, GA area and discovered she liked the “toys” associated with engineering, Gambone came to OSU and was convinced to go “Nuke”. In a quest to not have to work while attending school, Gambone applied for all scholarships she felt she had a shot at. With the awards of the WNSA scholarship, and one from Entergy Nuclear, Gambone has reached this achievement.

Gambone plans on going into nuclear power production after graduation, possibly with Entergy Nuclear in one of their New York State locations.

In November Gambone was selected as one of three NERHP Ambassadors, students who will work in the community to educate high school students about nuclear energy and the NERHP department at OSU, as well as give tours of the Radiation Center. Gambone feels a great sense of pride in being part of the NERHP department and wants to “encourage others to tackle what may seem initially overwhelming.”

Hamilton is just starting her second quarter in nuclear engineering, but is no stranger to the field and doesn’t seem too overwhelmed. Hamilton came to OSU from Austin Texas, where her high school had an internship program Hamilton took advantage of. Interested in engineering, but not sure what field, Hamilton did some research and wrote NE on her application not thinking she would actually be placed in a nuclear facility. Low and behold, the University of Texas at Austin has a reactor and Hamilton spent 1 year, half of it with out receiving credit, working in the teaching laboratory. While there she gained her reactor operator license for the UT Austin facility, a license that requires a minimum of 3 hours operation experience every quarter. Hamilton has kept current and will be renewing it over the winter break. Being a woman Hamilton thought she had a shot at the NSE scholarship and is very happy to have been awarded the money since she is paying out of state tuition.

Hamilton is not sure yet where she will go in the NE field, but between her reactor operator experience and her job doing daily radiation surveys at the OSU Radiation Center, she currently thinks it will be nuclear engineering rather than radiation health physics. What ever she does ultimately, she would like it to include a public education element. Perhaps we have a future NERHP Ambassador on our hands!

Another awardee following a nuclear engineering path is Joonyub Jun. Jun, like Gambone, is a senior who was awarded an industry scholarship, from Framatome, late last year. Being chosen for this WNA scholarship is an affirmation that he will be able to find funding for graduate school, and a motivating factor to keep his grades up. “This really encourages me,” Jun said. Jun moved to Oregon from Korea with his family 6 years ago, became a U.S. citizen last year, and hopes to eventually go into nuclear research for the government, in part to pay back his new country for the opportunities he has been given in developing his education. “I feel somewhat obligated to contribute to the government,” Jun said, “because without the financial aid I would not have been able to even think about going to school and get to do what I wanted to do.”

Jun, again like Gambone, was unsure when he started college what he wanted to study and where he wanted to ultimately obtain his degree from. An initial interest in business and knowledge of some colleges in the Boston area took Jun to Massachusetts where he spent six months working twelve hours shifts, seven days a week, to save money for school. “It is not the name of [the] school that gets you somewhere, it is me myself, and I am the one who has to work hard to get myself somewhere,” Jun realized. He returned to Oregon and Lane Community College where he learned that despite hating math in high school in Korea, here in the States he enjoyed calculus and found it made sense. Wanting to apply his math skills to “something practical”, Jun started engineering and transferred to OSU where he learned that there is more to nuclear than bombs and waste. “It really is challenging, but I like it” Jun said. Jun shares his knowledge with others by doing a little tutoring on the side.

With open enrollment in the Underrepresented Nuclear Science and Engineering Scholarship program, expect more interesting stories of hard work and dedicated students. The Western Nuclear Science Alliance is made up of OSU, and four other western universities, and five western DOE national laboratories. It was created to help educate students in nuclear science and technology in the face of a growing demand for trained experts.