Tag: NEXT Lab

10 Questions with NEXT Lab oversight committee chair, energy expert Doug Robison
A thin volume of Galileo’s 1610 landmark treatise The Starry Messenger sits on a bookshelf at oil and gas executive Doug Robison’s Abilene home. Within its pages, the famous astronomer, who turned his telescope to the stars to provide firsthand observation that ours is a sun-centered solar system and not an Earth-centered one, describes his […]

Love of chemistry, research combine to make NEXT Lab a perfect fit for ACU grad
Alli Mae (Bulkley ’20) Berry joined the team in ACU’s NEXT Lab as a research scientist just a month after graduating and five days before getting married. Despite the blur of life changes in such a short period of time, Berry jumped right into her work by learning the ins and outs of NEXT Lab’s […]

ACU NEXT Lab receives patent for innovative tool to monitor molten salt flow
Abilene Christian University’s Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing Laboratory, or NEXT Lab, has taken another step toward the reality of a molten salt research reactor with the approval of its first patent. The U.S. Patent and Trademark office awarded ACU the patent for a high-temperature flow meter Aug. 5, 2020, after a three-year process of developing […]

Engineering grad returns to alma mater to work on molten salt project
Vicente Rojas Aguirre was perfectly happy with his job at an engineering consulting firm in Abilene, but the 2017 ACU graduate just couldn’t turn down an opportunity to return to campus and work at a job with the potential to impact lives all over the world. So when a position in ACU’s NEXT Lab came […]

Bailey’s expertise in geothermal design primed him for role as NEXT Lab senior mechanical engineer
Tom Bailey’s (’71) career as a professional mechanical engineer didn’t end when he retired in 2013 from Weatherford International, a Houston-based oilfield service company. But it did change directions. In Houston, Bailey was director of a large engineering department. Today, he is a senior mechanical engineer in ACU’s NEXT Lab, working with faculty and mentoring […]

Chemistry professor Pamplin puts his knowledge into practice in ACU’s NEXT Lab
In the fall of 2017, Dr. Kim Pamplin (’91) added another hat to the stack he already was wearing – that of senior chemist with ACU’s Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing Laboratory or NEXT Lab, as it’s best known. Pamplin is a professor and former chair of chemistry and biochemistry, specializing in analytical chemistry. But the […]

Gibbs keeps projects running smoothly at ACU’s cutting-edge NEXT Lab
When Rosario Gibbs gave a presentation recently to a consortium of universities working with ACU’s NEXT Lab to develop a molten salt nuclear reactor, her first slide was of head coach Joe Golding and his NCAA Division I Southland Conference championship basketball team. Golding’s motto throughout the season, “trust the process,” is just as applicable […]

NEXT Lab researcher tackles project to extract medical isotope
In May 2019, Diego Zometa Paniagua was preparing to graduate from Abilene Christian University with a degree in chemistry. Today, just a few months later, he is working in the same building where he took chemistry classes and using the same labs, but with a different goal. He is working on a project with the […]

NEXT Lab brings Pfeifer home to join ACU’s pioneering research program
When Dr. Dylan Pfeifer joined ACU’s NEXT Lab as a research engineer in August 2018, it was much more than just a homecoming for the Abilene native. NEXT presented Pfeifer with unique opportunities to use his skills and contribute to both ACU and important scientific research. “ACU has always been a family place for me, […]

NEXT Lab receives $3.2 million from Robison Excelsior Foundation
The Robison Excelsior Foundation has pledged $3.2 million to Abilene Christian University’s Nuclear Energy eXperimental Testing (NEXT) Lab to address the world’s most critical needs of affordable and clean energy, pure and abundant water, and medical isotopes for diagnosing and treating cancer. This major gift brings the funding total for NEXT Lab research to date […]
Connect
Find us on social media.