Two Princeton Engineering alumni helped lead a major review of the U.S. government project to clean up millions of gallons of nuclear waste at a former weapons plant in Hanford, Wash.

John Rutgers, who studied civil engineering at Princeton, chaired a 16-member review team described by the U.S. Department of Energy as the “best and brightest” in the field. Among those Rutgers recruited for the team was classmate John Bodman, a chemical engineer.

Both described the review as a critical undertaking: restoring credibility to one of the nation’s largest environmental cleanup projects, which was in danger of losing congressional funding because of severe cost overruns.

“It was a fascinating project, and we worked very well together as a group,” Bodman said.