Applied Nuclear Science Group – Home of the Applied Nuclear Science Group

ANSG is a member of the following large research frameworks and collaborations:
Monitoring, Technology and Verification Consortium (MTV) – DOE/NNSA
Consortium for Nuclear Forensics (CNF) – DOE/NNSA
Interaction of Ionizing Radiation with Matter – University Research Alliance (IIRM-URA) – DOD/DTRA
Zetawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System (ZEUS) – NSF
Optical Parametric Amplifier Line (OPAL) – NSF

If interested, please contact Prof. Jovanovic ([email protected]) with your resume and a statement of your career goals.

Welcome to the Applied Nuclear Science Group at the University of Michigan! We are a multidisciplinary group of engineers (nuclear, electrical, mechanical) and scientists (physicists and chemists) who perform fundamental research in several areas of nuclear science and engineering. The two focus areas of our activities are:

Nuclear Detection and Remote Sensing. We develop novel and advance existing technical solutions to help address a variety of current and emerging nuclear threats.
Ultraintense Laser Science and Technology. We develop the technological and scientific foundation for the use of intense ultrafast lasers in science, industry, and security.

We are primarily an experimental group that takes advantage of a combination of outstanding facilities at the University of Michigan and at collaborating institutions, particularly national laboratories. We continuously recruit new postdocs, graduate, and undergraduate students who share our passion for research and are interested in pursuing a career in applied nuclear science.

News

September 2024: ANSG awarded a new National Science Foundation grant in an international collaboration led by Virginia Tech to study mineral detection of dark matter using geological samples.
May 2024: Alex Kavner successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Measurement of ¹⁴⁶Sm Half-Life and Ionization Produced by 254 eVnr Nuclear Recoils in Germanium”
April 2024: ANSG awarded a new Department of Energy grant to investigate real-time radiation effects on optical materials within the Nuclear Science User Facility (NSUF) framework, working with INL, ORNL, and Université Jean Monnet, France. See the highlight in Michigan Daily and The University Record.
April 2024: Caryanne Wilson receives the Nuclear Nonproliferation International Safeguards (NNIS) Fellowship
March 2024: Oskar Searfus successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Characterization of a He-4 Scintillation Detector and its Applications in Nuclear Material Assay”
March 2024: Andrew Wilhelm successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Measurement and Application of Topological Information in Physically and Virtually Segmented Scintillators”
January 2024: in a paper published in Physical Review Applied, Oskar Searfus explores novel signatures for safeguarding thorium reactors. See the highlight at UM.
September 2023: New grant awarded by the National Science Foundation to the University of Rochester-led team including ANSG to design and prototype essential technologies for EP-OPAL, a forthcoming laser facility that aims to reach the world’s highest peak power. See the highlight at UM.
August 2023: Igor Jovanovic is named the Associate Chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences.
June 2023: Igor Jovanovic is named an Editor of Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Part A.
April 2023: Hao Huang successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Generation, Optimization and Amplification of Ultrashort Long-wave Infrared Pulses”
March 2023: Tingshiuan Wu successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Obtaining directionality information from scatter-capture fast neutron detectors”
February 2023: New grant awarded by ARPA-E to investigate the hypothetical emission of ionizing radiation emission from low-energy nuclear reactions. See the highlight on Nuclear News.
January 2023: NNSA awards the $25M Nuclear Forensics Consortium to the University of Florida-led multi-university collaboration that includes ANSG at the University of Michigan. See the highlight at UM.
November 2022: ANSG joins the international LiquidO Consortium, with the goal to develop a novel detector technology based on opaque scintillators and use it in nuclear science and security applications.
November 2022: In the paper published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports and led by Lauren Finney, we show that filament-excited chlorophyll in plants can be used as a biosensor for nuclear activity. See the highlight at UM.
September 2022: Jill Hruby, Under Secretary for Nuclear Security of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), visits the Neutron Science Laboratory. See the photos.
July 2022: In a collaborative experiment with LLNL published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, Lauren Finney unravels the characteristics of uranium molecule formation in oxygen-containing plasmas. See the highlights at LLNL and UM.
May 2022: Lonnie Garrett receives the Nuclear Nonproliferation International Safeguards (NNIS) Fellowship
May 2022: Bryan Morgan successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Radiation Induced Nonlinear Optical Effects in Optical Glasses and Sapphire”
April 2022: Tingshiuan Wu receives the best poster presentation award at the MARC XII conference
April 2022: Igor Jovanovic is named a Topical Editor of Optics Letters
March 2022: Lauren Finney successfully defends her dissertation entitled “Remote Optical Detection of Uranium and Plant Response to Uranium Exposure”
March 2022: Bryan Morgan discovers that ionizing radiation can induce negative nonlinear absorption
November 2021: Kris Ogren successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Applications of Fast Neutrons in the Development of Novel Sources and Detection Signatures”
October 2021: Igor Jovanovic is elected a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society (ANS). UM coverage is here.
October 2021: New $1.9M grant awarded by the Department of Homeland Security for research on active neutron interrogation
August 2021: Most powerful laser in U.S. to begin operations at U-M
July 2021: Dr. Patrick Skrodzki appointed as Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory
June 2021: Patrick Skrodzki successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Remote laser-based spectroscopy of nuclear materials enabled by femtosecond laser filamentation”
June 2021: Xuan Xiao successfully defends her dissertation entitled “Broadband Long-wave Infrared Few-cycle Pulse Generation via Optical Parametric Chirped-pulse Amplification”
April 2021: Alex Kavner wins the DOE NNSA Laboratory Residence Graduate Fellowship (LRGF)
April 2021: Oskar Searfus receives the Nuclear Nonproliferation International Safeguards (NNIS) Fellowship
April 2021: Colton Graham receives the DOE Nuclear Energy University Programs Fellowship
January 2021: Felicia Sutanto successfully defends her dissertation entitled “Fast Neutron Background Quantification in Water Cherenkov and Segmented Organic Scintillation Antineutrino Detectors”
December 2020: Lauren Nagel receives an inaugural Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship from IAEA
October 2020: Cosmic ray-induced background in large water underground antineutrino detectors analyzed in a recent Physical Review C article. The news article is here.
October 2020: We report the yield of the ¹²C(p,p’)¹²C reaction for use in active interrogation in a Physical Review Applied paper. The news article is here.
August 2020: Dr. Tan Shi is appointed an Assistant Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University
April 2020: The paper ANSG co-authored with PNNL researchers made the cover page of the Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry highlighted by PNNL.
March 2020: A paper entitled “Colloquium: Neutrino detectors as tools for nuclear security” is published in Reviews of Modern Physics. Check for press coverage at UM and at LLNL.
March 2020: Xuan Xiao receives the Barbour Scholarship from the University of Michigan
February 2020: DTRA awards the Interactions of Ionizing Radiation with Matter – University Research Alliance to the team including ANSG at the University of Michigan. University coverage is here.
February 2020: Igor Jovanovic elected a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
December 2019: Tan Shi successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Ion Irradiation Effects on Two-Dimensional Layered Materials”
October 2019: Igor Jovanovic organizes the Ultrafast Optics XII Conference in Bol, Croatia featuring the 2018 Nobel Prize winner Gérard Mourou as a plenary speaker
September 2019: Dr. Jason Nattress is featured in an Oak Ridge National Laboratory news article
September 2019: Igor Jovanovic is elected a Fellow of the Optical Society (OSA) UM coverage is here.
September 2019: the most powerful laser in the United States to be built at the University of Michigan’s Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science with support from the National Science Foundation.
August 2019: Patrick Skrodzki is the lead author of a feature article in Physics of Plasmas, entitled “Plume dynamics and gas-phase molecular formation in transient laser-produced uranium plasmas”. Please see the university coverage here.
August 2019: Felicia Sutanto received an outstanding poster award at the 2019 LLNL Student Poster Symposium
June 2019: Dr. Milos Burger is appointed as an Assistant Research Scientist
June 2019: ANSG awarded a Department of Energy grant to investigate radiation effects on optical materials within the Nuclear Science User Facility (NSUF) framework
May 2019: ANSG receives support from Idaho National Laboratory to develop novel instrumentation for the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR)
April 2019: Lauren Finney receives the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
March 2019: Lauren Finney and Tingshiuan Wu receive the DOE Nuclear Energy University Programs Fellowships
January 2019: DOE/NNSA awards a $25M grant to establish the Consortium for Monitoring, Technology, and Verification led by the University of Michigan. Prof. Jovanovic serves the Associate Director for National Laboratories and the Thrust Area Lead for Fundamentals of Nuclear and Particle Physics.
September 2018: Jason Nattress successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Discriminating Materials using a Multi-particle Approach in an Active Interrogation Environment”.
August 2018: Nature journal Scientific Reports publishes our new paper in which we detect the signature of uranyl fluoride using ultrafast laser filament-induced fluorescence
July 2018: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory awards Felicia Sutanto the Livermore Graduate Fellowship
July 2018: Jason Nattress receives the Alvin M. Weinberg Distinguished Staff Fellowship from Oak Ridge National Laboratory
June 2018: A new book published by Prof. Jovanovic: Active Interrogation in Nuclear Security – Science, Technology, and Systems (Springer Verlag)
April 2018: Dr. Ed Cazalas is appointed as an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Utah
April 2018: Dr. Manish Sharma is appointed as an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Khalifa University
April 2018: Patrick Skrodzki receives the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
March 2018: ANSG is a part of the Advanced Instrumentation Testbed (AIT) US-UK consortium for remote monitoring of nuclear reactors using antineutrinos. See the press release from Michigan, LLNL, Newswise, and New York Times.
February 2018: Felicia Sutanto receives the Richard F. and Eleanor A. Towner Prize for Distinguished Academic Achievement
January-February 2018: Prof. Jovanovic and Jason Nattress visit National Tsinghua University (Taiwan) and conduct a collaborative experiment at the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research
January 2018: Prof. Jovanovic and Felicia Sutanto attend the kickoff collaboration meeting for the WATCHMAN project at the University of Sheffield and Boulby Underground Laboratory, Boulby Mine, England
November 2017: ANSG conducts an experimental campaign at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Structure and Nuclear Astrophysics
October 2017: the Nature journal Scientific Reports publishes our new paper on femtosecond filament-solid interactions
June 2017: Prof. Jovanovic elected a Senior Member of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management
June 2017: our paper on proton irradiation of 2D material heterostructures is published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.
June 2017: Prof. Jovanovic appointed the Chair of the Isotopes and Radiation Division, American Nuclear Society
June 2017: our collaborative research with PNNL on 2D fluorescence spectroscopy is published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.
June 2017: our CUOS team has been awarded a $1.9M Major Research Instrumentation grant by the National Science Foundation.
June 2017: we have been awarded a $300k Scientific Infrastructure Support grant by the DOE-Nuclear Energy University Program.
May 2017: Patrick Skrodzki receives the 2017 Innovations in Nuclear Technology R&D Award
May 2017: Felicia Sutanto receives the Nuclear Energy University Programs Fellowship
May 2017: Prof. Jovanovic elected a Senior Member of the Optical Society
May 2017: John Koglin successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Measurement of Plutonium-240 Angular Momentum Dependent Fission Probabilities using the Alpha-Alpha’ Reaction”.
April 2017: Our CUOS team is awarded a new ONR MURI project to investigate nonlinear optics and laser-plasma phenomena at long wavelengths using high-power lasers.
April 2017: Our novel high-responsivity optical sensor with a non-local response based on the single-layer material graphene is published in Nature Nanotechnology. Please see news coverage at Purdue&Michigan, Phys.org and Semiconductor Today.
April 2017: Applied Nuclear Science Instrumentation Laboratory (ANSIL) opens in the renovated Nuclear Engineering Laboratory building.
March 2017: the Nature journal Scientific Reports publishes our paper in which we demonstrate a novel method to measure uranium enrichment at large distances via femtosecond filamentation molecular isotopic spectrometry. Media coverage is here and also with Motherboard, Phys.org, Fox News, Mining.com, LongRoom.com, Digital Trends, and ExtremeTech.
November 2016: Kevin Xu receives the Rackham Graduate Fellowship
September 2016: the Nature journal Scientific Reports published our new method to fully characterize ultrashort laser pulses in arbitrary polarization states
June 2016: Scott Wandel successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Generation and Application of Ultrashort Coherent Mid-Infrared Electromagnetic Radiation”
May 2016: Dr. Kyle Hartig appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Nuclear Engineering Program at the University of Florida
May 2016: Kyle Hartig successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy with Improved Detection Sensitivity and Isotopic Discrimination”
April 2016: Prof. Jovanovic elected as the Vice-Chair of Isotopes and Radiation Division, American Nuclear Society
April 2016: A new technique to detect special nuclear material via low-energy nuclear reaction imaging published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports. Media coverage is here, and also includes NSF Science 360 News, AAAS, Gizmag, Phys.org, R&D Mag, Newswise, Science Daily, Christian Science Monitor, Government Security News, and outlets in Canada, Europe, and Asia.
January 2016: Dr. Ming-wei Lin appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Nuclear Engineering and Science of the College of Nuclear Science, National Tsinghua University, Taiwan
January 2016: group moves to the University of Michigan and Dr. Jovanovic assumes the directorship of Neutron Science Laboratory
November 2015: Phyllis Ko successfully defends her dissertation entitled “Hybrid Interferometric/Dispersive Atomic Spectroscopy for Nuclear Materials Analysis”
September 2015: Jason Nattress receives the IEEE Trainee Grant to attend the IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium-Medical Imaging Conference
August 2015: DHS awards $1.75M to the Georgia Tech-Penn State collaboration to develop novel detection systems for active interrogation
August 2015: Kyle Hartig represents Penn State in the Washington Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation
May 2015: John Koglin receives the fellowship from the Livermore Graduate Scholar Program (the former Lawrence Scholar Program)
May 2015: WATCHMAN collaboration highlighted by the Economist
May 2015: Igor Jovanovic receives a promotion to Full Professor
March 2015: Ed Cazalas receives the postdoctoral Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowship from the Stanton Foundation, RAND Corporation
February 2015: Ming-Wei Lin successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Direct Laser Electron Acceleration in a Density Modulated Plasma Waveguide”
February 2015: Phyllis Ko selected to present at the Rising Stars in Nuclear Science and Engineering Symposium at MIT
February 2015: Jovanovic Group joins the WATCHMAN collaboration
January 2015: John Koglin receives the APS DNP Travel Grant
December 2014: Ed Cazalas successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Radiation Sensitivity of Graphene Field Effect Transistors and Other Thin Film Architectures”
October 2014: Prof. Jovanovic participates in the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding creating a Global Engagement Network between Penn State and University of Zagreb, Croatia
October 2014: Scott Wandel selected as a finalist in the Emil Wolf Outstanding Student Paper Competition of the Optical Society of America
August 2014: Penn State-led collaboration awarded a $3M DOE project to develop Multi-Sensor Inspection and Robotic Systems for Dry Storage Casks
July 2014: Jason Nattress receives the IEEE Trainee Grant to attend the IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium-Medical Imaging Conference
June 2014: Jason Nattress receives the NNSA Nonproliferation International Safeguards Graduate Fellowship
March 2014: Yanchun Yin successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Quantum Phase Amplification for Temporal Pulse Shaping and Super-Resolution in Remote Sensing”
March 2014: Kyle Hartig receives the G. T. Seaborg Institute Research Fellowship from Los Alamos National Laboratory
March 2014: DOE/NNSA awards a $25M grant to the Consortium for Verification Technology led by the University of Michigan
February 2014: DTRA awards a $1.75M grant to a collaboration with the PSU Materials Science and Engineering to study radiation effects in novel 2D materials
December 2013: Prof. Jovanovic appointed as a Visiting Professor in the Medical School of the J.J. Strossmayer University of Osijek, Croatia
August 2013: NSF/DNDO awards a $5M grant to the MIT-PSU-GATech collaboration to develop novel methods for low-dose inspection using accelerator-produced gamma-rays
August 2013: Ed Cazalas receives the Valentin T. Jordanov Radiation Instrumentation Travel Grant to present at the IEEE/Nuclear Science Symposium-Medical Imaging conference
July 2013: Scott Wandel receives the Nuclear Energy University Programs fellowship
June 2013: Nuclear Security Education Program announces first graduates (also here)
June 2013: Phyllis Ko receives an award from the DOE Innovations in Fuel Cycle Research
April 2013: John Koglin receives the DHS Nuclear Forensics Graduate Fellowship
February 2013: Michael Foxe successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Low-Energy Ionization Yield in Liquid Argon for a Coherent Neutrino-Nucleus Scatter Detector”
December 2012: Jessica McNutt receives the DOE/NNSA Nonproliferation Graduate Fellowship
December 2012: Phyllis Ko receives her M.S. degree
September 2012: Prof. Jovanovic appointed the Chair of Optical Sciences subcommittee for the 2013 OSA Annual Conference “Frontiers in Optics”
July 2012: Phyllis Ko receives the J. D. Williams Best Student Poster Award at the INMM Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL
June 2012: Michael Foxe receives an award from the DOE Innovations in Fuel Cycle Research
June 2012: Daniel Abercrombie receives the ANS Accelerator Applications Division Scholarship
May 2012: Prof. Jovanovic elected to the ANS Isotopes and Radiation Division Executive Committee
January 2012: Phyllis Ko receives the Roy G. Post Foundation Scholarship
December 2011: Kyle Hartig receives the DOE/NNSA Nonproliferation Graduate Fellowship
October 2011: DARPA awards a $7M grant to the UCLA-PSU-SLAC-RadiaBeam collaboration to develop a compact laser-driven dielectric accelerator
September 2011: Prof. Jovanovic appointed the Chair of Optical Sciences subcommittee for the 2012 OSA Annual Conference “Frontiers in Optics”
June 2011: Amol Patil starts his new position as a scientist at Canberra
April 2011: Phyllis Ko receives the NNIS Graduate Fellowship from DHS
March 2011: Penn State’s Nuclear Engineering graduate program ranked fifth in the nation by the US News and World Report
March 2011: Prof. Jovanovic on CNBC “Street Signs” speaking on the safety of nuclear power
January 2011: Ming-wei Lin receives the Student Grant from the Particle Accelerator Conference
December 2010: Prof. Jovanovic publishes a tutorial on chirped-pulse amplification in Optik & Photonik journal by Wiley-VCH Verlag
November 2010: Prof. Jovanovic elected as the Assistant Program Chair of Isotopes and Radiation Division, American Nuclear Society
November 2010: Phyllis Ko initiates the Penn State Student Chapter of the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management (INMM)
August 2010: Prof. Jovanovic receives the Nuclear Forensics Junior Faculty Award from DHS
August 2010: Jovanovic Group completes the move from Purdue University to Penn State University
April 2010: Doug French receives the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
April 2010: Doug French receives the Incubic/Milton Chang Travel Award from the Optical Society of America
March 2010: Prof. Jovanovic receives the 2010 Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship
January 2010: Jovanovic group receives two large research grants from DOE, Office of Nonproliferation Research and Development and DTRA, Basic and Applied Sciences Directorate
May 2009: Michael Foxe receives the Nuclear Forensics Graduate Fellowship from DHS/DOD
April 2009: Jessica Mintz receives the Purdue Doctoral Fellowship
April 2009: Mike Foxe receives the Best Presentation Award at the ANS Student Conference
May 2008: Doug French receives the Ross Fellowship
March 2008: Prof. Jovanovic receives the DARPA Young Faculty Award
December 2007: Dr. Josh Walter receives the DTRA Postdoctoral Fellowship