The Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering is pleased to announce that Dr. Arthur Motta, Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, has accepted the position of Chair of Penn State’s Nuclear Engineering program, effective July 7, 2010. He succeeds Dr. Jack Brenizer, who has stepped down as Chair but will remain the J. “Lee” Everett Professor of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering in the department.

Dr. Motta earned his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and he also holds an M.S. in nuclear engineering and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

He joined the Penn State faculty in 1992 after serving as a post-doctoral researcher with both the Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique (CEA) at the Centre d’Etudes Nucleaires de Grenoble in France, and with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), at their Chalk River Nuclear Laboratory.

Throughout his tenure at Penn State, Dr. Motta has earned several awards and honors, including a 2001 Penn State Engineering Alumni Society Outstanding Advising Award and a 1998 Department Head’s Outstanding Faculty Award. Several of his former students are now faculty members at other institutions, and he is currently working on a textbook entitled, “Light Water Reactor Materials,” in collaboration with Dr. Don Olander of UC Berkeley.

In Dr. Motta’s 18 years with the Nuclear Engineering program, he has helped build its prominence among programs across the country. The undergraduate and graduate programs are ranked seventh and fifth, respectively, by U.S. News & World Report.

“It is an honor to be appointed the Chair of such a distinguished nuclear engineering program as Penn State’s. This is an exciting time for the program, with rising interest and enrollments and an expansion of research opportunities,” said Dr. Motta.

He continued, “We have an excellent faculty, who through their research are helping address the technical challenges of nuclear power and who are doing a great job in educating the next generation of nuclear workers. I hope to be able to lead the program to continued success and prominence.”

As Chair, Dr. Motta will oversee the Nuclear Engineering program at a time with largest ever enrollments of 208 juniors and seniors during the 2010-11 academic year.

Dr. Motta’s research interests include the behavior of nuclear reactor materials under irradiation; phase transformations; corrosion; mechanical behavior of materials; materials characterization using transmission electron microscopy, positron annihilation spectroscopy and synchrotron radiation; and Zr alloys, intermetallic compounds and steels. The main aim of this research is to obtain a mechanistic understanding of the degradation processes that affect materials used in nuclear power reactors. Such knowledge can help design better alloys for use in nuclear applications beyond the limits of current operational experience.