David Okrent

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David Okrent (born April 19, 1922 in Passaic , New Jersey , † December 14, 2012 in Los Angeles ) was an American reactor physicist .

Okrent graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology with a master's degree in engineering in 1943 and from Harvard University with a master's degree in physics in 1948 and a doctorate in physics in 1951. He then went to the Argonne National Laboratory , where he became a senior physicist and off 1957 headed the Fast Reactors and Reactor Safety department. From 1971 until his retirement in 1992 he was a professor in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at the University of California, Los Angeles . There he led an internationally respected research program on reactor safety.

In 1987 he received the Glenn Seaborg Medal from the American Nuclear Society and in 2007 the George C. Laurence Pioneering Award (for contributions to reactor safety). He was a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Society of Risk Analysis, and the American Nuclear Society, and in 1974 became a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the design of fast reactors, including criticality experiments, safety tests and analyzes, and the evaluation of cross-sections of neutrons (laudatory speech ). In 1961/62 and 1967/68 he was a Guggenheim Fellow .

From 1963 to 1987 he was on the Advise Committee for Reactor Safeguards.

Fonts (selection)

  • Editor with H. Greenspan, CN Kelber: Computing methods in reactor physics, Gordon and Breach 1968
  • with Harry Hummel: Reactivity coefficients in large fast power reactors, American Nuclear Society 1970
  • Nuclear Reactor Safety: On the History of the Regulatory Process, University of Wisconsin Press 1981

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birth and career data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
personal data
SURNAME Okrent, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American reactor physicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Passaic , New Jersey , United States
DATE OF DEATH December 14, 2012
Place of death los Angeles