With an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering and an MBA already, Ken Maxwell is no stranger to graduation ceremonies.

But he will be graduating again today, this time with a Master of Nuclear Science from ANU.

Ken says it was curiosity which drove him to return to university and a new area of study.

“The increased focus on science in the public media got me interested.

“I’m inquisitive and I like to find out how things work. I mean, how does a nuclear reactor work? It’s phenomenal when you think about it. I got to the point where I thought, why not challenge myself and actually find out?”

Ken is a Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, leading consulting teams helping Federal Government departments with big challenges like IT strategy, organisational changes or delivery capability. “Big, chunky transformational problems,” is how Ken describes them.

His Masters, he says, isn’t directly related to his work.

“It’s more about being challenged and studying something I’m interested in.

“But nuclear knowledge, related to mining, storage and defence for example, is going to be more and more in demand in Australia over the next five to twenty years, and it’s important to have people who can understand the concepts and communicate them.”

Ken says the program, offered by the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering, was “fantastic” and catered to students from all backgrounds, “whether they’re professionals like me, or from government departments, or they want to be a nuclear physicist. It covers the whole spectrum from practical expertise to pure theory.”

Having resolved the question of exactly how a nuclear reactor works, all that’s left for Ken is to collect his degree, and start deciding which one to start next.