Alumni

Brian successfully defended his dissertation, “Advances in Americium-241 Processing” the spring of 2023.  He is currently a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Allison successfully defended her thesis, “Understanding Aggregation of Solvating Extractants in Applied Separations” in the spring of 2024.  She is currently a Post Doctoral Associate at Argonne National Laboratory.

Poki successfully defended her dissertation, “Tandem Analytical Approaches to Characterize Challenging Separations Systems” the fall  of 2021.  She is currently a post-doctoral associate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Kevin defended his thesis, "Nuclear Forensics of Uranium Conversion: Investigations of Environmentally Altered Uranium Compounds" the summer of 2021. He is currently stationed in San Antonio, TX.

Nathan successfully defended his dissertation, “Separation of Trivalent Actinides and Lanthanides with Sulfur Donor Ligands and Extractants” the fall  of 2020.  He is currently a staff scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Erin successfully defended her dissertation, “Controlling Lanthanide Separations using Functionalized Ordered Mesoporous Carbon Solid Supports” the summer of 2020. She is currently a professor at University of Massachusetts - Lowell.

Michael successfully defended his thesis, “Understanding Extractant Aggregation through Molecular Simulation” in the summer of 2017. He completed a post-doctoral appointment at Washington State University with Aurora Clark immediately following his degree at Mines. He is currently a Staff Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory.

Kevin successfully defended his thesis, "Hexavalent Group Actinide Separation: Exploratory Research with Copper(III) Periodate" in the summer of 2017. He completed a post-doctoral appointment at Savannah River National Lab (SRNL) immediately following his degree at Mines.  He is currently a Staff Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Anna successfully defended her thesis, “Understanding Aggregation of Solvating Extractants in Applied Separations” in the summer of 2017.  She completed post-doctoral associate appointments at Pacific Northwest and Livermore National Labs following her degree at Mines. She is currently a Staff Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory.

Michael successfully defended his dissertation, “Relative Fission Product Yield Determination in the USGS in the USGS TRIGA MARK I Reactor”, in the spring of 2016.  Immediately following his time at Mines, he became a Program Manager for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Agency.  He is currently a Staff Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Morgan successfully defended her thesis, “Iminodiacetic Acid Complexation with Lanthanides Under Acidic Conditions”, in the spring of 2017.  She is currently a Physical Scientist for the National Nuclear Security Agency.

Andrew completed his M.S., "Speciation and Separation Studies of Tetraethyl Diglycolamide" in Nuclear Engineering the fall of 2019. He completed an internship at the Breakthrough Institute immediately following graduation. 

Matthew successfully defended his thesis, “Actinide-Aminopolycarboxylate Complexation Thermo-dynamics: Americium, Berkelium, Californium, and Einsteinium” in the summer of 2017.  He is currently an officer in the U.S. Army.

Matthew successfully defended his independent student project the Summer of 2022.  He is currently an officer in the U.S. Army.

Eric Norfleet was a graduate researcher in the Shafer Research group.  He is currently a middle school science teacher at Aurora Science and Technological middle school. 

Ning was a visiting student during 2019. He has returned to Tsinghau University in China to complete his Ph.D. and will work at the Sinopec Group, a petroleum company, upon completion of his Ph.D. the summer of 2020. 

Jana was an undergrad researcher for the Shafer Group from 2015-2017 and a Nuclear Forensics Undergraduate Scholarship Program awardee. She is currently a scientist at Oak Ridge National Lab.