Sometimes it feels like we're fighting an uphill battle for nuclear energy - and perhaps we are.

From July 7 -12, 16 students from around the country came to Washington DC to talk with politicians and policymakers about nuclear engineering education funding, energy policy, and other nuclear issues as part of the 2013 Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation (NESD). This year the delegation was comprised of students with especially diverse backgrounds, including nuclear engineering, chemical engineering, materials science, and nuclear safeguards policy. The chair of the delegation was Matthew Gidden, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying nuclear engineering and energy policy. He was assisted by two co-vice chairs: Mark Reed of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nicholas Thompson of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.