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Photo: Gretchen Ertl
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One of India’s largest commercial and research nuclear reactor facilities lies just south of Arunkumar Seshadri’s hometown of Chennai, India. It was there, during a high school field trip, that the seeds of his interest in nuclear power were planted.
“We learned the basic outline of how a reactor functions,” recalls Seshadri, a fifth-year doctoral student in nuclear science and engineering. “I was fascinated by how such a little bit of uranium or other fuel could produce such an enormous amount of energy.”
This fascination quickly found a formal outlet during Seshadri’s undergraduate years, and continues to propel him now at MIT.