SteveMooradian.com - the digital canvas of Steve Mooradian

So how am I an engineer?

My engineering comes in two flavors – nuclear and software.

There’s a crucial difference between ideas and accomplishments, the difference that distinguishes science from engineering.
~ Dr. Theodore Rockwell

While nuclear engineering and software engineering are vastly different disciplines, it’s intriguing to see how the core engineering principles apply to each uniquely and thoroughly.

Software Engineering

Computer programming (often called “coding” today) is something I’ve been doing since I was a kid and I got my first ‘puter. Back then 64 kilobytes was a “ton” of memory and the programming code looked like 10 PRINT "HELLO"; 20 GOTO 10.

I’ve been learning and using programming languages for a couple decades. I received a Master of Science in Information Systems from Northeastern University, and have coded projects in Java, C, C++, C#.NET, Visual Basic, VB.NET, Fortran, Pascal, ActionScript, JavaScript, VBScript, ASP/ASP.NET, JSP, PHP, and CFML. I have done both desktop client/server software and enterprise web applications. I have coded on supercomputers used for nuclear physics and on tiny chips that control toy cars. From tiny scripts that break a chatroom’s encryption to huge codes that control nuclear fuel moving equipment… been there, done that. I even put a trojan horse on my high school’s computers as a sort of reverse graduation gift.

Creating beautiful software (as creating anything beautiful) takes an engineer. Software Engineering is the methodical, systematic application of proven practices towards software design, development, operation, and maintenance. In terms of software engineering for the web, there is much overlap between software engineering, coding, and web development… and in fact sometimes the lines blur beyond recognition. As such, I have a separate web development section on this site located here, and a semi-hidden area of random programming projects located here.

For some good coding resources you should peruse my web development links located here.

Nuclear Engineering

I’ve spent a non-trivial chunk of my life to the science of harnessing kinetic and radiative energies from the mass defect of particle-matter interactions… but hey, who hasn’t done that? How cool is it during family get-togethers when you can explain the effects of a negative temperature coefficient of reactivity on the axial neutron flux distribution during a thermodynamic up-power transient!

I received my Bachelor’s of Science degree in Nuclear Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) back when you could still call it “the ‘tute”. Afterwards I attended the rigorous Navy Nuclear Power School in Orlando (not as a Navy officer… I was Army) alongside many of my Navy ROTC classmates from RPI. Then I started work at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) as a Nuclear Plant Engineer running one of two nuclear reactor platforms for the Navy. KAPL is also known for their published Chart of Nuclides, a staple of any well-rounded home library.

I have operated both civilian and military reactor plants, and have performed laboratory experimentation in a linear accelerator. I have clutched radiation sources I shouldn’t have. I’ve fried detectors, popped open breakers, lifted reliefs, and spilled contaminated liquid. I’ve also paralleled diesel generators the size of locomotives, calculated the precise concentrations for viable U-Th-Pu fuel, and literally sniffed out an electrical ground on nuclear test equipment. I’ve had the fortune to see the blue glow of Cherenkov radiation and the better fortune to have never seen the blue flash of the same.

My studies have taken me through almost every mathematical formula needed to design a thermodynamic power plant, reactor core and associated nuclear fuel – from neutron transport and k-effective to multi-phase flow – from thermal buckling to electric field theory. My experience has required that I physically perform every function of the operation of a nuclear power plant – from bleeding steam to shimming control rods – from analyzing coolant samples to testing emergency safety controls. Yeah… been there, done that.