Students visit Texas A&M for nuclear engineering conference
The Texas A&M student chapter of the American Nuclear Society hosted students from various universities at the 2026 American Nuclear Society Student Conference on April 16–18.
Students from universities across the country networked with each other and shared their research at a poster session in Rudder Tower in April.
Hundreds of nuclear engineering students from across the country came to Texas A&M University in April for the American Nuclear Society (ANS) Student Conference to discuss the latest science, present their research to peers, tour facilities and network with industry professionals. The event was hosted by Texas A&M’s ANS student chapter.
The effort to bring the ANS Student Conference to campus for the first time since 2015 began in the summer of 2023 with current senior and conference undergraduate co-chair Kira Burt. She put together a team, which included conference graduate co-chair Brindley Wade to start and has since grown to over 140 students.
This year’s student conference broke records for ANS. The number of people who registered for the conference hit the original limit of 750 attendees roughly three weeks before the conference, causing ANS officials to raise the registration capacity to 900. In the past, the registration total never reached 750. Of the 902 registered attendees, a quarter were professionals from the nuclear engineering industry. 210 attendees were from Texas A&M, most of which were students.
The three-day conference began with a day of technical workshops and facility tours. The tours included Texas A&M facilities — such as RELLIS and nuclear engineering research laboratories — as well as off-site trips, such as Texas’ two nuclear power plants in Glen Rose and Bay City and the future Molten Salt Research Reactor site at Abilene Christian University.
The next two days were packed with more lab tours and workshops, panel discussions and poster sessions. Talks and sessions covered important contemporary topics in nuclear science and engineering, from nuclear fusion and artificial intelligence to policymaking, advocacy and nonproliferation.
“A lot of students had the opportunity to present research, which is a first for a lot of them, and that’s always a valuable first step in their career,” Wade said.
The conference also provided a space for students to cultivate professional connections. It included a career fair, multiple networking breaks and quiet rooms available for organizations and companies to interview student attendees.
“It’s a great opportunity for students to network and get their resume out there in a way that’s a lot more real than just submitting an application on a website,” Wade said.
Students from various universities also had the opportunity to meet each other, exchange contact information and forge connections that will last beyond the conference.
“Although we have a large community here on campus, this showed students that we’re not on an island, and that there are other students out there who do the same classes, learn the same things and maybe conduct similar research,” Burt said.
Bringing the ANS Student Conference to Texas A&M — which has the largest student cohort among nuclear engineering programs in the country — allowed every Texas A&M nuclear engineering student to participate. To Wade and Burt, it was heartening to see so many students — undergraduates and graduates — come together to put on the event. Overall, about 75 students volunteered to organize and work at the conference.
“Seeing students truly believe in something enough to the point where they’re willing to have weekly meetings on a Sunday morning is almost unheard of,” Burt said. “To see students really step up and actually take a chance on this whole endeavor, and for it to pay off like it did, is really special.”
Most of the students involved didn’t have much experience in running a huge event like this, according to Burt. She and Wade added that planning and managing the conference has taught them confidence and leadership skills.
“It’s one thing to ask a hospitality student to put together a conference as massive as ours was,” Burt said. “It’s another thing to ask a ragtag team of nuclear engineers to do the same, and for them to really take ownership over something like this. Watching people grow and develop those skills was really special.”
