Featured Post from VCU College of Engineering

American Nuclear Society names Lane Carasik, Ph.D., as one of its “40 Under 40”

The recognition highlights leaders shaping the future of nuclear science and technology

Nov 7, 2025

2 min

Lane Carasik, Ph.D.

Recognized as an emerging leader in the nuclear science and engineering field, Lane Carasik, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, was recently acknowledged by the American Nuclear Society as one of its top “40 Under 40.”


“It is a huge honor to receive this acknowledgement from my professional community,” said Carasik. “I feel it is a reflection of the amazing nuclear engineering activities I’ve gotten the opportunity to pursue before and during my time at the VCU College of Engineering.”


The list, featured in the most recent issue of Nuclear News magazine, celebrates young professionals who are driving innovation and shaping the future of nuclear science and technology. Created to spotlight a new generation of nuclear professionals, the “40 Under 40” program highlights those who are advancing technical fields, from advanced reactor deployment to AI applications and national security, while actively engaging the public, mentoring peers and advocating for nuclear’s role to achieve energy independence and security.


“Dr. Carasik’s research efforts, together with his support for students and their own research goals, exemplifies the best qualities of the VCU College of Engineering,” said Arvind Agarwal, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, “integrating research and teaching at the core of everything he does, from classroom and lab work to community outreach.”


Carasik was selected for the “40 Under 40” from hundreds of candidates across the United States. Mentoring his first three Ph.D. graduates, Arturo Cabral, Connor Donlan and James Vulcanoff, is one of Carasik’s proudest achievements. He was also honored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) as a rising star in mechanical engineering in 2024 This builds off Carasik receiving the highly competitive and prestigious Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Research Award ($875k split over five years) in 2023 to support his work on molten salt based fusion energy systems similar to Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ ARC technology. Carasik’s Fluids in Advanced Systems and Technology (FAST) research group, is a computational and experimental thermal hydraulics group focused on enabling the development of advanced energy systems and critical isotope production methods.


Legendary physicist Enrico Fermi was an early inspiration to Carasik during his undergraduate studies. Fermi’s expertise mirrored Carasik’s interests, and the physicist’s impact on the field of nuclear engineering was motivating. As an established nuclear engineering faculty member, Carasik seeks to make a lasting impact on the field and the people in it. His ’s long-term goal is earning membership in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

Connect with:
Lane Carasik, Ph.D.

Lane Carasik, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering

Dr. Carasik researches computational and experimental thermal hydraulics for fusion & nuclear energy and medical isotope production.

Energy IndependenceAdditive ManufacturingComputational Fluid DynamicsVerification and ValidationThermal-Fluids Design

You might also like...

Check out some other posts from VCU College of Engineering

2 min

National Science Foundation funds research into quantum material-based computing architecture at the VCU College of Engineering

Supporting the development of advanced computing hardware, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Supriyo Bandyopadhyay, Ph.D., Commonwealth Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) College of Engineering with more than $300,000 to develop processor-in-memory architecture using quantum materials. “This is one of the first mainstream applications of quantum materials that have unusual and unique quantum mechanical properties,” Bandyopadhyay said. “Quantum materials have been researched for more than a decade and yet there is not a single mainstream product in the market that utilizes them. We want to change that.” The four-year project, titled “Collaborative Research, Foundations of Emerging Technologies: PRocessor In Memory Architecture based on Topological Electronics (PRIMATE),” aims to advance computing hardware and artificial intelligence by integrating topological insulators and magnetic materials. Topological insulators are a special material with an electrically conductive surface and an insulated interior. They have special quantum mechanical properties like “spin-momentum locking,” which ensures the quantum mechanical spin of an electron-conducting current on the surface of the material is always perpendicular to the direction of motion.This marks the first time such quantum materials will be used in a processor-in-memory system. “We place a magnet on top of a topological insulator,” Bandyopadhyay said. “We then change the magnetization of the magnet by applying mechanical strain on it. That changes the electrical properties of the topological insulator via a quantum mechanical interaction known as exchange interaction. This change in the electrical properties can be exploited to perform the functions of a processor-in-memory computer architecture. The advantage is that this process is fast and extremely energy-efficient.” If successful, this approach could reduce energy use and dramatically speed up computing by moving data processing into the memory itself. It addresses the longstanding “memory bottleneck,” the slowdown caused by computers constantly needing to move data back and forth between processor and memory. These efficiencies could make advanced AI more efficient and accessible, paving the way for the first commercially viable applications of quantum materials.. The research is a collaboration with University of Virginia professors Avik Ghosh and Joseph Poon. A VCU Ph.D. student will work on the project and receive training in fabrication, characterization and measurement techniques, preparing them to lead in the rapidly evolving field of computing hardware.

2 min

VCU College of Engineering’s Michael McClure, Ph.D., named chair of Orthopaedic Research Society’s Skeletal Muscle Section

Michael McClure, Ph.D., associate professor from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and affiliate faculty in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and in the Institute for Engineering and Medicine, has been named chair of the Orthopaedic Research Society’s (ORS) newly launched Skeletal Muscle Section. The section began in August 2025, building on research interest groups and symposia to create a dedicated home for skeletal muscle studies within ORS. Its mission is to advance collaboration, innovation, education and translation in this field. Skeletal muscle disorders cause disability, chronic pain and high health care costs. Severe injuries and degenerative diseases, such as muscular dystrophies, remain difficult to treat. The section will strengthen research in muscle development, aging, trauma, disuse and disease. This work will expand the basic understanding of and identify therapeutic targets to restore function. In its first year, the section will measure success through increased skeletal muscle abstracts at the 2027 ORS Annual Meeting, growth in ORS membership and active participation in section programs. “We are thrilled to launch the Skeletal Muscle Section,” McClure said. “This home for translational muscle research will build on ORS progress over the past 10 years, help recruit new members and foster an environment that connects multiple areas of orthopaedic science.” McClure’s commitment to this work is shaped by his family’s experience with neuromuscular diseases, witnessing the impact of war-related injuries on patients’ quality of life from the Richmond Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the momentum of translational discovery. Learn more about the ORS Skeletal Muscle Section.

6 min

The Sky’s the Limit: Researching surface impacts to improve the durability of aircraft

Associate professor Ibrahim Guven, Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering is conducting a research project funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) that explores building aircraft for military purposes and civilian transportation that can travel more than five times the speed of sound. Guven’s role in this project is to consider the durability of aircraft surfaces against elements such as rain, ice, and debris. His research group is composed of Ph.D. students who assist with the study and has collaborated with other institutions, including the University of Minnesota, Stevens Institute of Technology and the University of Maryland. Why did you get involved with this research project? The intersection of need and our interests decides what we research. I’m interested in physics and have been working on methods to strengthen aircraft exteriors against the elements for 12 years. We started with looking at sand particle impact damage, and then we graduated from that to studying raindrop impact because that’s a more challenging problem. Sand impact is not as challenging in terms of physics. A liquid and a solid behave differently under impact conditions. The shape of the raindrop changes prior to the impact due to the shock layer ahead of the aircraft. Researching this impact requires simulating the raindrop-shock layer interaction that gives us the shape of the droplet at the time of contact with the aircraft surface. Unlike with sand, analyzing raindrop impact starts at that point, which requires accurate modeling of the pressure being applied. As the aerospace community achieves faster speeds, there’s a need to understand what will affect a flight’s safety and the aircraft’s structural integrity. That need is what I’m helping to fulfill. Were there any challenges you and your research group faced while working on this study? How did you overcome them? Finding data was hard. I’m a computational scientist, meaning I implement mathematical differential equations that govern physics to write computer code that predicts how something will behave. My experiments are virtual, so to ensure that my models work well, I need experimental data for validation. However, conducting experiments on this problem is extremely challenging. That’s the roadblock. Currently, we refer to data from the seventies and eighties. Beyond that, this kind of information is not available. We are working to generate data that my computational methods need for their validation. An example is the nylon bead impact experiment. Some researchers found that if you shoot a nylon bead at a target, it leads to damage similar to that from a raindrop of the same size. It is much easier and cheaper to shoot nylon beads compared to the experiments involving raindrops. However, this similarity vanishes as we go into higher velocities. How do you typically gather data for a project of this nature? We are working with a laboratory under the U.S. Navy. They can accelerate specimens to relevant speeds, meaning they can shoot them into the air at the desired velocity. A colleague at Stevens Institute of Technology also came up with a droplet levitator. He uses acoustic waves emitted by tiny speakers to play a certain sound at a certain frequency to create enough air pressure to suspend droplets midair. To an untrained eye, it looks like magic. They levitate droplets and use a railgun to shoot our samples at the droplets. Our samples hitting the droplets are stand-ins for the aircraft surface material. Once this is done successfully, they shoot a sample with high-speed cameras that can take ten million frames per second. As a result, we get a good, high-fidelity picture of this impact event. That is the type of data I’m seeking, and this is how I get it from my collaborators. What was your overall experience working with the students in your research group? I like to think it was positive. I try to be a nice advisor and give them space to explore, fail, and bring their own ideas. Even if I feel like we’re at a dead-end, I step back and let them figure it out. My role is to help them grow. Teach them, train them and help them along the way. That’s the experience. Did you notice any personal changes in your students during this project? Yeah, I have. When they’re just out of their undergraduate programs, confidence is lacking sometimes. You see them become more sure of themselves as they learn more and more. Often, regardless of whether English is their native language or not, writing is a big issue for every student. How one presents ideas in written form is a persistent problem in engineering. I see the most growth in that area. Again, an advisor has to be a guide and also have patience. Eventually, after working on multiple paper drafts, I can see tremendous improvement. You must allow them to see their shortcomings. It’s important to work with students to refine how they frame a problem, explain it to a wide audience in concise terms, and use neutral language without leading them to certain conclusions. Why do you think that this research is important? Somebody has to do it, right? I believe that I’m the right person because of my background. Personally, I think if this research makes for safer travel conditions, and if I have something to offer, then why not? If we can accurately simulate what happens in these conditions, we can use our methods to test out designs for damage mitigation. For example, we can perform simulations with different surface materials for the aircraft to see if using a different material or layered coating system leads to less damage. In a bigger picture, we’re working on a very narrow problem in our field, but we don’t know how useful that’s going to be in 10, 15 or 30 years from now. Whatever we study and put out there in terms of publications, it may help some other researcher in a different context many years later. This could be space research, modeling an atmosphere on a different planet, or something that is related to our bodies. There are parts of physics in this problem that do not necessarily only apply to high-speed flight. It could be many different things. One has to understand that what is studied may seem obscure today, but because the universe is more or less governed by the same physics, everything should be put in a theoretical framework, done right and shared with the community. People may learn things that could become relevant in the future. It’s not uncommon. What is another subject that you plan to study? The next natural step is coming up with strategies to mitigate damage in these scenarios. If avoiding a risk is not an option, can we actually come up with a solution? We have to determine how to modify an aircraft’s design to prevent a catastrophe. Another extension of my research would be to examine the landing of spacecraft on dusty planetary bodies. During landing on Earth, aircraft approach and reach the ground very smoothly. On the other hand, a spacecraft comes down slowly and needs a lot of reverse propulsion for a soft landing. As it does, it kicks up a large amount of dust, which blows back and hits the spacecraft. Taking into account the damage that occurs due to particle impact is a direct connection to my work. This again is an open area, and because we have ambitions to have a permanent presence on dusty places like the moon and Mars, we have to nail down the concept of landing safely. That is where my research could help.

View all posts
Powered by