The Department of Nuclear Engineering held a reception earlier this week to mark the endowment of the new Norman C. Rasmussen Career Development Chair in Nuclear Engineering. The first holder of the chair is Kenneth R. Czerwinski, who joined the MIT faculty as an assistant professor in November 1996.
Many individuals and corporations joined to endow the chair to honor Professor Emeritus Ras-mussen, who retired in 1994 after 30 years on the faculty, including service as department head from 1975-81. He is noted for his pioneering work in nuclear risk assessment as exemplified by the 1994 Reactor Safety Study. That work and subsequent contributions are among the most influential elements of nuclear safety and licensing throughout the world.
Professor Czerwinski received the PhD in nuclear chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1992. Before coming to MIT, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut fur Radiochemie at Technische Universitat in Munich, Germany. He is an expert in actinide chemistry with an interest in environmental and waste management of nuclear materials.
Among the contributors to the chair who attended the reception at MIT were Bernard Fox, president and CEO of Northeast Utilities; William McCormick, CEO of CMS Energy Corp.; Stephen Younger, program director for nuclear materials weapons technology at Los Alamos National Laboratories; and Dr. Zack Pate, president and CEO of the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 9, 1997.
