UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Aiden Ochoa, a doctoral student in nuclear engineering in the Penn State College of Engineering, has been awarded a University Nuclear Leadership Program (UNLP) fellowship from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy.
The fellowship, valued at $175,000 over three years, will support Ochoa’s tuition, stipend and research efforts as he pursues his doctorate in nuclear engineering, advised by Xing Wang, assistant professor of nuclear engineering.
The DOE’s UNLP fellowship is designed to cultivate future leaders in the nuclear energy sector by investing in students conducting research aligned with national energy priorities. For Ochoa, this means pushing the boundaries of how artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced modeling techniques can transform the design of materials used in nuclear reactors.
Ochoa’s path into this interdisciplinary research began during his undergraduate studies at Penn State, where he earned his bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering. It was during this time that he first started working with Wang on AI-driven nuclear materials research.
“While completing my bachelor’s degree, I studied the use of deep learning to automatically process nano-scale images of nuclear-related materials with Dr. Wang,” Ochoa said.
Ochoa's current doctoral work expands on that foundation by integrating materials science with computational techniques. His doctoral research will leverage AI and machine learning to help identify and fine-tune new alloys capable of withstanding the extreme environments found in advanced nuclear systems.
Ochoa said he sees his work not only as a technical challenge, but as part of a broader movement within the field.
“We are living in the age of a nuclear rebirth, where the field is experiencing immense growth and progress,” Ochoa said. “This fellowship puts me at the cutting edge of a unique and multidisciplinary field. I hope it will not only empower me to strive for excellence as a doctoral candidate but also give me the resources to become an expert in my research field, meet incredible people and share my work with colleagues and students.”
Wang, who has advised Ochoa since his undergraduate years, emphasized both the significance of the fellowship and Ochoa’s strong academic trajectory.
“From my perspective, this fellowship will support Aiden’s scientific exploration combining high-throughput computation and machine learning to develop robust materials for more reliable and efficient nuclear energy,” Wang said. “It is a well-deserved award."
Wang noted that Ochoa’s impact is already being felt within the research community.
“Aiden is an exceptionally productive researcher,” Wang said. “Within his first year as a doctoral candidate, he has delivered two talks at major international conferences and published two first-author conference proceeding papers, including one currently in press in one of the world’s top conferences in AI and machine learning for computer vision, workshop proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Vision."
But Ochoa’s commitment extends beyond the lab. Drawing from his personal experience growing up abroad as the child of U.S. military personnel, he has actively sought ways to give back especially to underrepresented students with limited access to science, technology, engineering and math resources.
“Beyond his research, Aiden is deeply committed to using his expertise to benefit others,” Wang said. “To help address what he saw as limited outreach to children of military families overseas, he organized presentations at high schools he attended or knew personally during a recent visit to Europe. Though these efforts, he introduced students to college life, nuclear engineering and the university application process. The sessions received overwhelmingly positive feedback, and he plans to continue and expand these efforts.”