Best Paper Awards
Thank you to all our Young Member presentations at the 2018 Winter Meeting. We look forward to seeing you all at the 2019 Annual Meeting!
Previous Winners:
Summer 2017: Brandon A. Wilson, The Ohio State University, “Evaluation of Optical Fiber Bragg Grating in a Nuclear Reactor.”
Winter 2016: Alex Hagen, Purdue University
Summer 2016: Boyuan Li, The Ohio State University
YMG Excellence Award
Nominations for the 2019 award are open now! Nominations are due August 1st.
Download the nomination form here.

Mr. Brett Rampal
Nuclear Team Manager
Clean Air Task Force
“For his tireless leadership and service to the Young Members Group.”
Previous Awardees:
2017: Dr. Shikha Prasad
2016: Dr. Kathryn D. Huff
2015: Dr. Nicolas Stauff
2013: Dr. Rachel Slaybaugh
2012: Dr. Piyush Sabharwall
2012: Dr. Elia Merzari
2011: Not awarded
2010: Arielle Miller
2009: A. Nichole Ellis
2008: Not awarded
2007: W. David Pointer
This award recognizes a young member who has demonstrated overall excellence in a variety of areas. The award is granted to an individual who is a member of the ANS Young Members Group (YMG), is involved with ANS at the national level, actively advances the goals of the ANS YMG, displays outstanding non-technical skills as well as technical or managerial ability, is recognized by others in their field, demonstrates high quality and safety standards, and positively represents nuclear science and technology to the general population. Emphasis is placed on well rounded qualifications.
The candidate must be an ANS member and a member of the YMG, under the age of 36 or within five years of graduation at the time of nomination.
Selection Method
Nominations must include the completed nomination form accompanied by the following supporting documents:
- A narrative summary of about 1,000 words detailing the qualities of the candidate, relevant accomplishments, and significance of achievements
- Additional letters of endorsement (no more than five)
- A brief chronological resume or history of the nominee
- And any relevant literature or other evidence that the candidate’s actions have been outstanding are recommended, and will be considered as part of the overall application
Pitch Your PhD
Congratulations to the winners of the inaugural Pitch Your PhD competition at the 2019 Annual Meeting. Be on the lookout for information about Pitch Your PhD at the 2019 Winter Meeting.
For Pitch Your PhD, participants have 3 minutes to summarize their thesis work for an audience outside of their own field, including fellow students and potential employers at the ANS meeting.

Matt Zimmer
Zimmer is a working towards his PhD from North Carolina State University and is planning to graduate in 2020. His thesis focuses on high spatial and temporal resolution modeling of two-phase flow with the goal of improving flow regime transition predictions.

Trivedi is working towards her PhD from North Carolina State University and plans to graduate in 2020. Her thesis focuses on lead-cooled fast reactors and improving understanding of uncertainties at multiple levels of fast reactor modeling.
2017-2018 “Nuclear Explained” Video Competion
Thank you to all of the participants in the joint ANS YMG-NAYGN “Nuclear Explained” student video competition. There were many excellent entries. We encourage you to continue to share these with your friends and community.
1st Place
Application of Neutron Activation Analysis in the assessment of atmospheric Pollution
Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
2nd Place
Nuclear Myths
Spanish Nuclear Youth Group, Spain
3rd Place
The Fission Reaction
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil