This annual award is recognizes outstanding achievement in which engineering knowledge has been effectively applied to yield an engineering concept, design, safety improvement, method of analysis or product utilized in nuclear power research and development or commercial application. The award will be presented at the 2012 ANS annual meeting.

Pointer is a world-recognized authority on the CFD analysis of nuclear reactor thermal-hydraulics, and serves as a DOE program manager and technical integrator under the Advanced Modeling and Simulation Office. Currently, Pointer leads the development of the SHARP Reactor Integrated Performance and Safety Code for DOE-NE’s Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation program. To date, his contributions have led to a significantly greater understanding of the performance of wire-wrapped tight-lattice fuel assembly designs for advanced reactors, and the prediction of thermal mixing in reactor relevant geometries such as t-junctions and large plena.

At Argonne, Pointer serves as the manager of the Engineering Simulation section in the Nuclear Engineering Division, providing technical leadership and programmatic guidance for a range of large scale nuclear reactor and fuel cycle facility analyses involving multi-dimensional, multi-scale, multi-physics phenomena on high-performance computing platforms. Pointer is an active member of the American Nuclear Society.