The U.S. National Nuclear Security administration (NNSA) has just issued a twenty five million dollar grant to create the Nuclear Science and Engineering Nonproliferation Research Consortium. (NSENRC) The new organization consists of eight universities and five national laboratories with U.C. Berkley as the lead institution. The Consortium includes Michigan State University; UC Davis; UC Irvine; the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; George Washington University; Texas A&M University; and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In addition to the universities, the following national laboratories are involved: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories.
In an NNSA press release, the NNSA deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation announced the award. She said, “I am confident that more basic research efforts in academia will complement the applied efforts of the national laboratories and industry in supporting the critically important national security goals of our country.”
The new consortium is being established to conduct “cutting-edge research and development in four technical areas: nuclear and particle physics; radiochemistry and forensics; nuclear engineering; and nuclear instrumentation and radiation detection.” The Consortium will also conduct for additional activities including gathering nuclear data, creating models and simulations, studying nuclear security policy and conducting training in nuclear fields.
U.C. Berkley has received grants from the NNSA in the past for work in nuclear security. The NNSA gave U.C. Berkley a twenty five million dollar grant in 2010 to create the National Science and Security Consortium (NSSC). The former chairman of the U.C. Berkley Nuclear Engineering Department made the following comment about the two grants. “In a way, we are continuing the work that began in 2011, but we’re improving upon what we’ve done, especially in the areas of nuclear data and nuclear security policy.” He is the principle investigator for both of the NNSA grants.
Most of the partners in the new NSENRC were part of the 2010 NSSC program. George Washington University in Washington, D.C.; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Texas A&M University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are new additions to the group for the NSSC.
The NNSA has charged the new Consortium with three major goals.
1. The Consortium is to work on integrating basic academic research with applied national laboratory research.
2. The Consortium is to explore concepts, technologies and paradigms that can complement research at the national laboratories for application to the mission of nuclear nonproliferation.
3. The Consortium is to train new nonproliferation experts for careers at Department of Energy laboratories and related federal facilities.
One of the most important objectives of the NSSC and the NSENRC is the training of future experts in the field of national nuclear security. Three hundred and fifty students and postdoctoral scholars have been trained by the NSSC since 2011. The NSSC has a multidisciplinary program that provides hands-on training in nuclear science, technology and policy. Students and scholars were sent to national laboratories to collaborate with over sixty laboratory scientists.
The principle investigator for both organizations pointed out that that the NSSC has received more than 140 awards for faculty and students. There have been more than 170 collaborative publications and conference proceedings produced. Over six hundred oral and poster presentations on fundamental and applied research have been given in support of the mission by the NSSC. Almost forty NSSC fellows made the leap to staff and postdoctoral positions in Department of Energy national laboratories. Other NSSC graduate went on to pursue careers in academia and at various institutes and laboratories.
