What started as a classroom assignment for his health physics graduate students has turned into a popular TikTok channel run by Robert Hayes, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at North Carolina State University. Hayes, ANS member since 2001, spoke with ANS News about the beginnings of his TikTok channel (@nuclearsciencelover), its growing popularity (more than 117,000 followers), and how to condense difficult nuclear-related topics into 60-second sound bites. What prompted you to start the TikTok account? I require graduate students to find a research topic related to health physics that will answer one of ANS's Nuclear Grand Challenges. About half of the students in every course choose Public Engagement as their topic. There were some brilliant ideas they kept coming up with. They felt that society needed influencers or social media giants that had the facts about nuclear and could communicate them in an understandable way to the general public.
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