15th Saint Nicolas Meeting of the Czech Nuclear Society

Every year for the last 15 years, the Czech Young Generation of the Czech Nuclear Society (CYG) holds in early December the annual Saint Nicholas Meeting (SNM), named after the Saint Nicholas Day, when kids from all over the Czech Republic meet with Saint Nicholas. The Saint treats them with candies and sweets for their year-long good behaviour.  2015 was not different and the 15th Saint Nicolas Meeting took place on the premises of the Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication, Department of Electrical Power Engineering.

This meeting is a main annual activity of the Czech Young Generation, the young generation network under Czech Nuclear Society. Over the years the meeting expanded from two to three days as well as the number of participant grew up. Last year’s SNM saw 72 participants with one quarter of them women. The participants were not only from Czech universities, nuclear industry and nuclear-related research centres but one third of them arrived from Slovakia, where Slovak Young Generation closely cooperates with CYG.

During the first two days, students and young professionals presented their work in oral or in poster section. There were 42 papers presented, with significant accent on detectors, nuclear fuel, new materials and nanotechnology in nuclear industry. As usual main part of meeting was dedicated to the best nuclear-related theses from students of bachelor and master degree programs which are selected by Czech Nuclear Society each year. First prize in Best Bachelor Thesis category won Jana Kittnerova from Department of Nuclear Chemistry, Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, who focused on cementum materials in the barriers for radioactive waste repositories. Prize for the Best Master Thesis went to young promising student from University of Defence Lucie Fiserova, who presented issues of radiation detectors and performed independent comparison of CdTe detectors.

It is a long-standing tradition of SNM that each meeting has at least one special presentation from an invited nuclear professional, who shares his experience and knowledge with the young colleagues. This time the Atoms for Peace was presented by Czech nuclear safety specialist Zdenek Kriz from Centrum Vyzkumu Rez. The last day of the meeting was reserved for technical trip: this time SNM’s participants visited the new high voltage laboratory at the Brno University of Technology.