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CORVALLIS, Ore. – Brian Woods, professor and head of the School of Nuclear Science and Engineering in the Oregon State University College of Engineering, has been appointed by President Joe Biden to the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.

The 11-member board is an agency within the executive branch whose purpose is to perform independent technical and scientific peer review of U.S. Department of Energy activities related to the management and disposal of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.

Woods, the Henry W. and Janice J. Schuette Chair in Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Health Physics, has been at Oregon State since 2003, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on applied thermal hydraulics, nuclear reactor safety, fluid dynamics, nuclear rules and regulations, and the societal aspects of nuclear technology.

Woods earlier spent four years in the U.S. Navy as a diver and also worked for the Department of Energy as an engineer within the Office of Environmental Restoration and for Dominion Energy as a nuclear safety analyst.

He received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree and doctorate in nuclear engineering from the University of Maryland.