Staff

Jeff Bickel currently serves as a R&D Engineer with the Thermal Hydraulics Laboratory.  His primary focus involves the design and fabrication of simulant-fluid heat transfer experiments.  Jeff began working in the Thermal Hydraulics Laboratory in 2008 and has been involved with numerous different research projects.  He serves as a resource to many of the undergraduate and graduate students within the lab and provides advice as to design and construction techniques for experimental work.

For the past three years, Jeff worked closely with Nicolas Zweibaum and AJ Gubser in the scaling, design, and construction of CIET.  He continues to work tangentially on this project, though is now focused on the design and construction of the PBHTX experiment.

Jeff graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington in 2005.  He also holds a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA as well as an M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Jeff enjoys CAD/CAM fabrication work, woodworking, welding, and general tinkering on other independent projects.  Additionally, he serves as a technical advisor to a student-run blade-making competition hosted by The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society.  In April, 2015, the UCB team took home first honors for creating a blade “that most closely demonstrates a historic blade’s reproduction”.

When not working in the laboratory, Jeff can be found in Tahoe, Yosemite, or the Sierra Nevadas at large.