Graduate student John (JP) Lacy completed a 10-week internship at Electric Power Research Institute in Charlotte, NC as a part of his DOE-Nuclear Energy University Program Fellowship. As a part of this internship, JP performed research on ultra-nanocrystalline surface modification (UNSM) of austenitic stainless steel. JP’s wok has shown that the UNSM process results in a significant improvement in pitting corrosion resistance of stainless steel. JP also worked on an experimental system to evaluate stress corrosion cracking (SCC) behavior stainless steel and UNSM treated stainless steel in boiling magnesium-chloride environment to understand the SCC behavior of the two types of materials. The work aligns with JP’s graduate research thesis work at UW which focuses on the evaluation of a range of peening processes, including laser shot peening and pulse water jet peening to mitigate chloride-induced stress corrosion cracking (CISCC) in welds in stainless steel containments for used nuclear fuel dry cask storage systems (DCSS).