Oregon State University has named Todd S. Palmer and Małgorzata Peszyńska as its 2024 Distinguished Professors, the highest academic honor the university can bestow on a faculty member.
Palmer and Peszyńska have both been internationally recognized for their research. Palmer is an expert in the physics of nuclear reactors and computational methods for radiation transport and diffusion. And Peszyńska is a leader in mathematical and computational modeling of complex processes.
Since 1988, Oregon State has awarded the title of University Distinguished Professor to faculty who have achieved national and international distinction for their contributions to scholarship, research and creative work, teaching and mentoring, public engagement and service.
Todd S. Palmer
Distinguished Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering
College of Engineering
What originally drew you to your field of study?
Throughout elementary, middle and high school I was always drawn to math, computer programming and science, but I also had an interest in literature and music. I had this great physics teacher in my senior year, and he got to the back of the textbook where nuclear reactions and nuclear power were introduced. I remember thinking “Ooh, that’s cool, and I might be able to make a living at this!” The rest is history.
What keeps you motivated at this stage in your career?
My motivation stems from a combination of a continued steady stream of interesting technical problems to work on, a feeling of personal responsibility to help society address challenges in national and energy security, and a desire to give back to future generations. I’ve been very fortunate in my life, and I want to pay it forward.
What’s the one big takeaway you’d want someone to know about your field of study?
I am a nuclear engineer by degree, but I think of myself as a computational physicist working in nuclear energy, national security and other industrial uses of radiation-related technology. It may appear that this is a very narrow or niche field, but nuclear engineers are highly interdisciplinary with skills and knowledge that allow us to nimbly address a wide variety of technical and social problems.
What have you learned from your work that surprised you?
In teaching, I’ve been surprised to learn just how important it is to present technical subjects from a variety of different perspectives. In research, the degree of difficulty involved in, and satisfaction that can be achieved from, a successful interdisciplinary collaborative project is something that I didn’t expect. And I discovered that I enjoy working on systemic, university-wide challenges to try to make things better for future students, faculty and staff.
What does the title “distinguished professor” mean to you?
When I learned that I would be receiving this title I was quite shocked. My academic home here at OSU is small, and I thought that I was fairly invisible. This acknowledgement — and being truly seen by OSU colleagues and administration — is very special to me. And though it takes the form of individual recognition, it is received as the product of the hard work and dedication of a great many people — family, students, mentors and colleagues.
Questions just for fun:
When did you arrive at Oregon State? From where?
I first arrived in 1983 as a bright-eyed high school graduate ready to study engineering, after finishing school in Nebraska. My family moved to Omaha early in my junior year from Hillsboro, Oregon, and I really wanted to get back home to Oregon. Later, after finishing my Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in 1993 and working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California for a few years, I joined the faculty in January 1995.
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