Speaker
Description
Nuclear fission has shaped both our understanding of the atomic nucleus and many of the technologies that define the modern world. Nearly ninety years after its discovery, it continues to challenge fundamental theory while underpinning applications from national security and nonproliferation to energy production to astrophysics and nuclear medicine.
In this talk, I will focus on research areas where basic science questions and application-driven needs genuinely intersect. I will use concrete examples—fission cross sections, fragment angular distributions, fission product yields, prompt and beta-delayed emissions—to show how microscopic physics propagates through the nuclear data pipeline into the evaluated libraries used by most technologies. Along the way, I will “open the hood” on how these evaluations are produced and maintained in practice.
Finally, in an era of AI-driven workflows and large-scale optimization, I will revisit what we really mean by uncertainties and information content in both fundamental and applied fission research. Whether you are after sharper arguments for your favorite fission project, deeper insight into how the data behind your engineering tools are built, or new ways your measurements and calculations can have an impact, this presentation aims to give you something you can carry back into your work.