Dissertation

Advancements in the Nuclear Data of Fission Yields

Biography

Eric was an Assistant Research Engineer in Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley, and received his PhD in Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley in May 2021. His thesis studies focused on the physics and nuclear data of fission. He has developed a method to calculate covariance matrices for fission yields from evaluated nuclear data libraries. He also developed the Fast Loading User Facility for Fission Yields at LBNL's 88-Inch cyclotron, a pneumatic system that allows the rapid transport of actinide samples for the measurement of short-lived (<1 s) fission yields. He has worked with Dr. Denise Neudecker of LANL to write the fission yield section of the Template on Expected Experimental Uncertainties. Eric was a 2018-19 NNSA Graduate Fellow and was a fellow of UC Berkeley's Nuclear Science and Security Consortium between 2017 and 2021.

Eric completed his Bachelor of Science in Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley. During his undergraduate studies, he performed research with Dr. Bethany Goldblum of the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium, Dr. Brian Quiter of LBNL, and Dr. Lee Bernstein. This research led to the development of the Fission Induced Electromagnetic Response code and a first-author publication on it and its applications.

In addition to his research interests, Eric is strongly interested in science education and teaching. He has served as a teaching assistant on six occasions in the Departments of Nuclear Engineering and Chemistry at UC Berkeley for the subjects of nuclear physics, nuclear security, dosimetry, and nuclear chemistry. In 2018, Eric received an “Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor” award, a university-wide recognition at UC Berkeley. He is also in the process of completing UC Berkeley’s Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

Publications

A complete publication list is available at Google Scholar.

Featured:

Stochastically Estimated Covariance Matrices for Independent and Cumulative Fission Yields in the ENDF/B-VIII.0 and JEFF-3.3 Evaluations
 E. F. Matthews et al.
 Atomic Data and Nuclear Data Tables
 Published May 2021

FIER: Software for Analytical Modeling of Delayed Gamma-Ray Spectra
 E. F. Matthews et al.
 Nuclear Instrumentation and Methods A
 Published February 2018

History of and Aftermath from the Withdrawal of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
 In Press December 2021