By Grant Guggisberg
Carl R. Ice College of Engineering
The Carl R. Ice College of Engineering at Kansas State University, with recent approval from the Kansas Board of Regents, will add nuclear engineering as its 15th Bachelor of Science degree program.
Offered through the Alan Levin Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, the curriculum of 123 credit hours will be officially available in fall 2025.
Nuclear engineers impact the world through designing and improving reliable, efficient nuclear energy generation; developing life-saving innovations in medical imaging, treatments and therapies; and contributing to national security through the advancement of nuclear safety, radiation protection and defense technology.
The degree was previously offered at K-State beginning in 1952 and ending in 1996, when the nuclear engineering and mechanical engineering departments merged. The bachelor’s degree program was discontinued due to a nationwide decline in perceived demand for nuclear engineers; instead, the college has since offered nuclear engineering as a sub-plan within the mechanical engineering curriculum.
In adding the bachelor’s program back into its offerings, K-State will again offer nuclear engineering degrees at all levels. The university continues to be the exclusive home to a nuclear engineering program at any level in Kansas. Additionally, the TRIGA Mark II Nuclear Reactor Facility in Ward Hall is one of only 25 university research reactors in the nation and the only such facility in the state.
“We’ve seen substantial increases in the number of students interested in pursuing our nuclear engineering option within the mechanical engineering bachelor’s degree program,” said Amir Bahadori, nuclear engineering program director and associate professor in the mechanical and nuclear engineering department. “K-State already has nuclear-option graduates working for highly visible entities, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center and Evergy, as well as many of the country’s top national laboratories. Adding this undergraduate degree will further strengthen K-State as a regional leader in this field.”
K-State has several faculty members with extensive backgrounds in nuclear engineering, as the department has continued to offer nuclear engineering education for the last 29 years through the undergraduate sub-plan as well as two graduate-level degrees, a master’s and a doctorate.
Bahadori will lead the program with teaching and research support from Ronnie C. Brockhoff, teaching assistant professor; Anna Iskhakova, research assistant professor; Arsen Iskhakov, assistant professor; Douglas McGregor, university distinguished professor; Walter McNeil, associate professor; and Jeremy A. Roberts, associate professor.
The College of Engineering will seek accreditation by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET for the nuclear engineering program after the first graduates of the program have completed their degrees, which is the standard ABET process for accreditation of new programs.
“Adding this degree is a great way to leverage our existing resources to attract more students to the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering,” said Matt O’Keefe, dean of engineering and LeRoy C. and Aileen H. Paslay chair in engineering at K-State. “This will allow more of our students to study this field, which we anticipate will continue to see growth at a steady pace as jobs are created in the commercial power, government, defense and health sectors of the economy.”
