Karen Koop is a junior Nuclear Engineering major from San Antonio, Texas.  She is also pursuing minors in Mathematics and Radiological Health Engineering.  She hopes to combine her dedication to the nuclear industry with her passion for politics.

The summer after Karen’s freshman year she interned with the reactor engineering team at Duke Energy’s Oconee Nuclear Station in Seneca, South Carolina.  During this time she was involved in power plant testing and organized community service efforts among interns.  The summer after Karen’s sophomore year she had the opportunity to spend two months at the University of Muenster, Germany with the Institute for Nuclear Physics through the Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE) program.  As a member of an international collaboration, she analyzed data taken from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratories, an experiment studying a new state of matter, the Quark-Gluon Plasma.  She went on to present her research at the joint American Physical Society and Japanese Physical Society in Maui, Hawaii.

Karen is currently one of fifteen American and Canadian students serving as German Academic Exchange Services (DAAD) Student Ambassadors in the inaugural year of the program.  The purpose of the program is to communicate opportunities for students to work and study abroad in Germany.  She also works actively with the American Nuclear Society, and currently serves as a Texas A&M Chapter officer.  She has presented a paper and attended numerous national conferences.  Karen is involved in the Engineering Scholar’s Program and is a University Honors Candidate through the Honors Program.  She now serves as an officer and leader of Christian Nuclear Fellowship, a Bible study in the Department of Nuclear Engineering.

As a sophomore, Karen served as a host to 100 high school students from the Texas Rio Grande Valley, directed fifteen college students and forty eighth grade students during and after school in McAllen, TX for one week as a member of Aggies Reaching Out through LEAD, a sophomore leadership organization.  She also led a small group Bible study for freshman girls through Doulos.  As a participant in the Student Conference On National Affairs (SCONA), her team was awarded Best Policy Presentation for their policy proposal on the topic of Solving Ethnic Conflict Through International Diplomacy.

Karen is currently a member of the United States Navy through the Navy Nuclear Power Program, and upon graduation will be commissioned as an Officer.  She will spend four years after graduation as an instructor in Charleston, South Carolina, teaching and mentoring Navy students before they serve on nuclear powered submarines and aircraft carriers.  She plans to pursue a graduate degree during this time.  She is excited about this character-building experience and opportunity to serve.