Shadi Ghrayeb receives Alumni Achievement Award

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – School of International Affairs (SIA) alumnus Shadi Ghrayeb ('08 Eng ’12 M.I.A. '13 Eng) was recently named one of 15 recipients of the 2019 Penn State Alumni Association Alumni Achievement Award.

The award honors prominent alumni, 35 years of age and younger, for their outstanding professional accomplishments. Award recipients are nominated by an academic college or campus and invited by the president of the University to return to Penn State to share their expertise with students and the University community. Honorees demonstrate to students that Penn State alumni succeed in exceptional fashion at an early age.

Ghrayeb is a nuclear engineer, Division of Reactor Projects, Region 1 Office with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The goal of his current work for the NRC is protecting the public and the environment in the area of nuclear safety by conducting inspections and overseeing enforcement and emergency response programs for nuclear reactors in the Northeast U.S.

He previously worked at the NRC as a nuclear engineer in the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, Division of Spent Fuel Management through the Nuclear Safety Professional Development Program and also served as a technical adviser for the NRC’s Nuclear Incident Response Team. Prior to joining the NRC, he worked as a nuclear engineer for the U.S. Department of Energy in Idaho Falls, Idaho. During his academic tenure, he completed nine internships: three at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and three at Idaho National Laboratory; and at Brookhaven National laboratory; the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (Vienna, Austria); and as adviser to Congressman Dennis Kucinich at the U.S. House of Representatives. He holds dual B.S. degrees in nuclear engineering and engineering physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2007.

Ghrayeb’s research is a principal author of 20 academic articles that have been published by the American Nuclear Society, Annals of Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Science and Engineering. He formerly volunteered with the Fort Lee Volunteer Ambulance Corps, in Fort Lee, New Jersey. As a certified EMT, he provided basic life support and immediate transport for the sick and injured. He also represented the ambulance corps at health fairs, community programs, and high school DUI re-enactments.

A member of the Penn State Alumni Association, Ghrayeb resides in Bogota, New Jersey.

Penn State Law alumni Iyadh Abid (’16 LL.M.) and Teleicia Dambreville (’13 J.D.) were also selected as recipients of the 2019 Alumni Achievement Award. Penn State Law is closely connected to SIA; both schools operate under the leadership of Dean Hari M. Osofsky and share space in the Lewis Katz Building at University Park.

Abid, Dambreville, and Ghrayeb, along with the other Alumni Achievement Award recipients, will be officially recognized at an award ceremony on March 29, 2019, on the University Park campus.