Laural Briggs
Why did you choose Northwestern?
When I spoke with faculty and staff in Northwestern's Technological Institute (now McCormick), I could see that they welcomed and supported women as engineering students, which was progressive back in 1969. I also had family connections to Northwestern.
How would you describe your research and/or work to a non-academic audience? What was it then and/or what it is now?
I spent my 40-year career at Argonne National Laboratory working primarily in various aspects of advanced nuclear reactor design and safety analysis. My work focused on developing computer codes to model how different designs of nuclear reactors operate under a range of conditions. I also had the opportunity late in my career to work with Argonne colleagues in high-performance computing.
Tell us who or what inspired your research and/or work.
I was guided through my undergraduate work at Northwestern by Carolyn Krulee and Prof. Donald Eggen. My graduate school work was directed by Profs. Warren (Pete) Miller and Elmer Lewis. All these people were essential in helping me determine my career path. I found nuclear energy research appealing as a newer engineering field that combined aspects of several traditional engineering disciplines and that was contributing to the evolution of the U.S. energy generation program.
What are you most proud of in your career to date?
Overall, I am proud of having been able to contribute to a field that plays a major role in energy generation throughout the world. I have found it very satisfying to collaborate with nuclear energy researchers within both North America and a number of European and Asian countries. I'm also proud of having contributed to Argonne's programs to introduce middle school and high school girls to the many opportunities that STEM careers provide.