ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Global Formation of Nuclear Engineering Education (1950-1980)

• In Event: Nuclear History as Global History: Current Debates and New Perspectives 1

English Abstract

This paper investigates the historical formation of nuclear engineering expertise and education in the United States and Sweden between the 1950s and 1970s in a global context of Cold War politics and emerging transnational cooperation. It examines how “nuclear” expertise evolved through the institutionalization of nuclear engineering education, shaped by government policy, transnational exchanges, industrial demands, and interdisciplinary considerations. Through archival research, oral histories, and case studies from MIT, the University of Michigan, KTH, and Chalmers, the paper traces how governments and universities negotiated what counted as nuclear expertise amid shifting global agendas of nuclear energy development. It argues that nuclear engineering developed as a hybrid, interdisciplinary field through educational “trading zones” that linked physics, mechanical engineering, chemistry, and emerging reactor technologies. It introduces the concept of nuclear engineers as a transnational “epistemic community,” analyzing how their knowledge production and political influence were shaped by education. Crucially, the analysis reveals how curricula changed over time – in different places in different ways, but each time driven by transnational exchanges. As reactor technologies scaled up and safety concerns evolved, the “nuclearity” of knowledge evolved from focusing mostly on theoretical physics to applied thermal-hydraulic and metallurgical engineering. Ultimately, by revealing how nuclear knowledge was globally constituted, the paper illuminates the historical roots of today’s nuclear expertise and its role in shaping contemporary debates on energy transitions and the future of nuclear power.

Author

• Siegfried Evens, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven