Category: "international"
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May 2, 2013
From 11-18 April, recent NSSPI Ph.D. graduate Braden Goddard
traveled to northern India to teach classes in the Nuclear
Engineering Department at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
(IITK). Goddard gave a series of six 75 minute lectures, covering
such topics as nuclear safeguards, Monte Carlo methods, and nuclear
security science. These lectures were attended by two professors,
two Ph.D. students, and eight Masters of Technology (M.Tech.)
students from IITK. This series of lectures was considered to be
part of the class requirements for the M. Tech. students, and, as
such, the M.Tech. ...
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April 18, 2013
The Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (NSSPI) at
Texas A&M University recently conducted the 2013 Nuclear
Facilities Experience (NFE) in Japan. The event was co-coordinated
with the Integrated Support Center for Nuclear Nonproliferation and
Nuclear Security (ISCN) of the Japan Atomic Energy Authority.
Participants in the NFE included students and professors from
Texas A&M, the Tomsk Polytechnic University of Russia, and the
Hanoi University of Science of the Vietnamese National University.
Dr. William Charlton, director of NSSPI and an associate
professor in Texas A...
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April 11, 2013
NSSPI senior Ph.D. student James Miller is currently visiting
the Nuclear Energy program at Pandit Deendayahl Petroleum
University (PDPU) in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. He is there
to give a series of lectures on nuclear security to students in the
PDPU Nuclear Energy Masters of Technology (M.Tech.) program.
The five-week course runs from March 18 - April 20 and covers
topics including the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear security, physical
protection, and nuclear materials accounting. The five PDPU
student participants are all first-year students with backgrounds
in mechanical ...
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April 9, 2013
NSSPI faculty member Dr. Sunil S. Chirayath has been selected by
the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at South
Africa's North-West University (Potchefstroom Campus) to be the
Co-Supervisor for two of their Nuclear Engineering graduate
students. Dr. Chirayath will advising Ph.D. student Marina du
Toit and M.Sc. student Sinenhlanhla Sihlangu in their research
along with North-West faculty members Dr. Anthonie Cilliers and Dr.
Vishnu Naicker, respectively. Ms. Toit will be conducting research
on the "Development of Gen III+ PWR Thorium based Fuels" and Ms.
Sihlang...
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March 26, 2013
From March 18-20 NSSPI Director Dr. William Charlton
participated in the CTBTO Academic Forum in Vienna, Austria.
Focused on education related to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
(CTBT), the forum was organized by the Preparatory Commission for
the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) as
part of their Capacity Development Initiative and intended for
academics engaged and interested in CTBT education as well as
broader disarmament and non-proliferation topics. The purpose
of the forum was to build upon the dialogue of a previous seminar
held last su...
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March 20, 2013
NSSPI Director, Dr. William Charlton traveled to Seoul, Korea
February 19-20, 2013 to participate in the 1st Asan
Nuclear Forum hosted by the Asan Institute for Policy
Studies. At this forum, 200 leading nuclear experts from over
30 countries and international organization gathered to discuss
major issues in nuclear nonproliferation, peaceful use of nuclear
energy and nuclear security. Dr. Charlton chaired a session
at the forum on Nuclear Safety and Terrorism and moderated a
luncheon on nuclear security.
...
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March 14, 2013
NSSPI Research Engineer, Claudio Gariazzo, was invited to
lecture at the 11th European Safeguards Research and
Development Association (ESARDA) Course on Nuclear Safeguards and
Nonproliferation in Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia. Held from
February 25th to March 1st, the course was
aimed for only ASEAN countries (with Australian observers).
The course had 36 participants from around Southeast Asia and
Australia and also included lecturers from the Joint Research
Centre of Ispra, Italy, the Japanese Atomic Energy Authority's
Integrated Support Center for Nuclear Nonprolifer...
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December 13, 2012
From October 1 to December, NSSPI hosted two student interns
from the Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) in Tomsk, Russia.
Denis Tatarnikov and Dmitry Prokopyev spent their internship at
NSSPI conducting research in nuclear security and nuclear forensics
under a project sponsored by the National Nuclear Security
Administration's Office of Material Protection, Control, and
Accounting and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The
Tomsk students not only conducted substantive research projects
during their time at NSSPI, producing a detailed report and
presentation, bu...
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October 10, 2012
The Gulf Nuclear Energy Infrastructure Institute (GNEII) held a
two-day symposium and graduation ceremony on the Abu Dhabi campus
of Khalifa University on October 9 and 10 to mark the completion of
their 2012 program.
The symposium focused on nuclear safety, security, and
safeguards and featured the eleven capstone projects completed by
the GNEII fellows. The 2012 GNEII class consisted of 26 fellows
from five different countries. The capstone projects were the
culmination of the 16-week GNEII course. Four of the capstone
projects are already slated for publicatio...
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September 13, 2012
NSSPI faculty organized a series of lectures and exercises
relating to nonproliferation and Safety, Security, and Safeguards
(3S) for a group of twenty-nine Kenyans attending a Nuclear Power
Institute (NPI) workshop from July 8 through August 8. The
workshop was focused on building the capability in Kenya to embark
on a nuclear power program, and current 3S standards and practices
were presented to the group as fundamental requirements of any
nuclear program. The participants in the workshop represented
a wide range of professionals from the Kenyan government, academia,
...
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August 29, 2012
From August 10 - 20, 2012, NSSPI faculty and students traveled
to Tomsk in Russia to participate in the 6th
International Nonproliferation Summer School: "Nuclear
Technologies: Nonproliferation, Disarmament, and Peaceful Use of
Nuclear Energy." They also met with and discussed joint research
and educational projects with Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU)
faculty, signed a joint TAMU-TPU Memorandum of Understanding (MOU),
and toured the TPU Museum, Exhibition Center, Educational
laboratories, and the Atomic Energy Information Center.
At the Nonproliferation Summer School, 26 stude...
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August 27, 2012
During the first two weeks of July, NSSPI hosted two students,
Mr. Manit Shah and Mr. Vijay Mehta, from the M. Tech. program in
Nuclear Energy at the Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU),
along with Profesor Shriram Paranjape, Chair of the Nuclear Energy
department at PDPU. The objective of their visit was to
receive hands-on laboratory experience in measurement techniques to
support the security of nuclear materials.
During their visit to NSSPI, the PDPU delegation attended
lectures and participated in lab experiences on various nuclear
security topics led by NSSPI ...
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July 20, 2012
On June 18, 2012, NSSPI faculty members Dr. Craig Marianno and
Dr. Alexander Solodov took part in a luncheon at the US Embassy in
the Czech Republic. Ambassador Norman L. Eisen hosted the
luncheon in honor of the CVUT Nuclear Engineering Conference, a
week-long graduate and post-graduate workshop that was held in the
Mechanical Engineering Department at the nearby Czech Technical
University in Prague. The workshop was organized by the Czech
Nuclear Education Network (CENEN) using European Union program
funds and was endorsed by the US Embassy as part of its initiative
to...
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April 16, 2012
During the period of March 30 - April 7, Dr. Alexander Solodov
travelled to Malaysia as part of a US Department of Energy (DOE)
team to participate in a Non-Destructive Assay (NDA)
Workshop. The training workshop was intended for
representatives of Malaysian nuclear agencies and universities and
was focused on the use of the handheld radiation detector
identiFINDER for various applications including: search, location,
and identification of radiological and nuclear materials; gamma
spectroscopy; and nuclear safeguards features such as uranium
enrichment measurements. The worksh...
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March 12, 2012
The Winter 2012 edition of the Journal of Nuclear Materials
Management is a special issue featuring the work of students
involved in the Russian Academic Program on Nonproliferation and
International Security (RAP-NIS), a technical safeguards education
collaboration between NSSPI, TAMU, and two premier Russian
universities: the Russian National Research Nuclear University
Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (NRNU-MEPhI) and the
Obninsk State Technical University's Institute of Nuclear Power
Engineering (NRNU-IATE).
According to NSSPI research engineer Claudio Gariazzo in the
...
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March 9, 2012
The Gulf Nuclear Energy Infrastructure Institute (GNEII) is set
to begin the second year of courses at the Abu Dhabi campus of
Khalifa University in the United Arab Emirates. The 2012
program will be divided into 4 month-long modules that will run
from March 4th until September with multi-week breaks in
between. Nineteen students from the Gulf region are currently
attending the courses, which cover the technical foundations of
nuclear energy, nuclear nonproliferation and safeguards, and
nuclear security and safety, followed by a capstone module in which
students research, prep...
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March 6, 2012
According to the World Nuclear Association, "Asia is the main
region in the world where electricity generating capacity and
specifically nuclear power is growing significantly." Among those
nations interested in adding nuclear power to their energy mix,
Malaysia is currently working toward 2021 as a target date for the
country to start generating its own nuclear power. As such,
the country needs to develop the required human resources in the
academic, industrial, and legal sectors very quickly. With
such an ambitious goal, Malaysian universities are actively
pursuing coo...
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February 6, 2012
Dr. Paulo Barretto will be speaking in an upcoming MSC Wiley
Lecture Series symposium on the Iranian nuclear issue on February
8, 2012 in the Koldus Building on the campus of Texas A&M
University. The speakers for this symposium will discuss the
Iranian nuclear issue and give their comments and ideas on recent
events, such as the murder of Iranian nuclear scientist, the
economic sanctions imposed by US on Iran, the possible consequences
of oil sanctions on the European economy, US national security and
foreign policy, and the possibility of military conflict if Iran
insist...
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January 20, 2012
In December 2011, NSSPI staff member Dr. Alexander Solodov
travelled to Indonesia as part of a US Department of Energy (DOE)
team to participate in a series of meetings with the Indonesian
Nuclear Energy Regulatory Agency (BAPETEN). The first event was the
7thPermanent Coordinating Group meeting in Bali,
Indonesia, during which the US DOE delegation and BAPETEN
representatives discussed the progress of ongoing joint activities
in the area of nuclear material accounting, safeguards, and
security. Plans for the upcoming year and new joint projects were
also outlined and approved by ...
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January 17, 2012
From December 11-16, 2011, NSSPI staff and students presented
their work at the GLOBAL 2011 conference held at Makuhari Messe in
the Chiba province of Japan. The first day of the conference was
focused on the affects of the Fukushima-Daiichi accident on the
nuclear futures of nations such as France, Russia, the U.S.,
Kazakhstan, India, and, of course, Japan. The second day was
devoted to in-depth discussions on advances in technology related
to the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle.
NSSPI students Braden Goddard, Julia Eigenbrodt, and Alison
Goodsell were able to present their wo...
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January 12, 2012
This fall, NSSPI hosted two student interns, Vladimir Marchenko
and Alexey Nikienko, from the National Research Tomsk Polytechnic
University (TPU) of Russia through a project coordinated by NSSPI
staff members Claudio Gariazzo and Dr. Alexander Solodov. The
objective of their tenure at TAMU was to fulfill a practical work
experience requirement as part of their respective engineering
degree plans and to enhance their proficiency of the English
language. Both students are enrolled in the TPU nuclear material
protection, control and accounting engineering degree program.
Working und...
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December 15, 2011
From December 5-9, 2011, NSSPI Director Dr. William Charlton
traveled to Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia to participate in the
"International Workshop on Safeguards Curriculum Development at the
National University of Malaysia (UKM)." The objective of the
workshop was for experts from the US and the Republic of Korea to
provide an initial consultation to the Malaysian Atomic Energy
Licensing Board (AELB) and UKM on safeguards curriculum development
as part of the planned Safety, Safeguards and Security (3S) program
at UKM. UKM hopes to become a hub of 3S training in the
region...
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August 17, 2011
NSSPI students and staff traveled to the Labor Spiez in
Switzerland from July 25-27 for the Russian Academic Program in
Nonproliferation and International Security (RAP-NIS) Student
Research Symposium. The Student Research Symposium allows
students from the US and Russia to share their graduate
research and build professional relationships. NSSPI students
Roushan Ghanbari and Travis Gitau joined students from Moscow
Engineering and Physics Institute (MEPhI) and the Obninsk Institute
for Nuclear Power Engineering (IATE), both institutes of the
Russian National Researc...
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June 21, 2011
The Gulf Nuclear Energy Infrastructure Institute (GNEII)
celebrated the completion of its pilot course with a ceremony at
the Khalifa University campus in Abu Dhabi on May 19, 2011. A
total of ten Emirati students participated in the "Fundamentals"
module, a 12-week educational program focused on nuclear power and
nuclear safety, safeguards, and security. These students are
employees of three major, nuclear energy-related organizations in
the UAE, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), the
Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR), and the Critical
National Infr...
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March 23, 2011
Dr. Craig Marianno has been called to support home team
operations for the NNSA's Consequence Management Response Team
(CMRT) at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada. On
March 15th, the NNSA deployed 33 experts and more than
17,200 pounds of equipment to U.S. consulates and military bases in
Japan to monitor radiation levels and gather technical information
about the situation on the ground. As part of the team in Las
Vegas, Marianno will be working in dose assessment and helping to
interrupt radiological data (both ground and aerial measurements)
as it comes ...
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February 23, 2011
A ceremony at the Khalifa University of Science, Technology, and
Research in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, was held Feb. 20 to
commemorate the official signing of a Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) between Khalifa University, the Texas Engineering Experiment
Station (TEES), and Sandia National Laboratories to jointly operate
the Gulf Nuclear Energy Infrastructure Institute (GNEII).
Located in Abu Dhabi, GNEII will be a Khalifa University institute
housing a regional education program offering both classroom
instruction and hands-on experience in topics related to nuclear
ener...
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December 21, 2010
Nuclear Security Science and Policy (NSSPI) Graduate Assistant
Researchers, Braden Goddard and Chris Ryan, traveled to the
European Commission Joint Research Center (JRC) in Ispra, Italy
from December 4 through December 11, 2010, to perform neutron
measurements in support of Goddard's Ph.D. research.
The objective of the measurements was to detect neutrons in
coincidence using an International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA)
approved Active Well Coincidence Counter (AWCC). The material
measured consisted of uranium, plutonium, and mixed-oxide in
different isotopic con...
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November 2, 2010
From August 23-27, 2010 NSSPI student Travis Gitau had the
opportunity to be a lecturer in an International Safeguards Seminar
held at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. The purpose of the
seminar was to educate and engage young members of the Chinese
nuclear industry in international safeguards and nonproliferation
efforts. The seminar was organized under an agreement between the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the State Development Planning
Commission of the People's Republic of China on Cooperation
Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Technology (PUNT), the National
Nuclea...
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October 11, 2010
NSSPI associate director for international programs, Dr. Paul
Nelson, and Adam Hetzler, a graduate student in the Nuclear
Engineering department at TAMU, traveled to India the week of
August 20-September 4, 2010. The purpose of their visit was
to finalize arrangements for Hetzler to present lectures on nuclear
security engineering at Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University
(PDPU) and Magalore University (MU) and to explore the possibility
of developing education programs in the field at other Indian
universities. As part of these preparations, a letter of
cooperation was s...
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October 7, 2010
In September 2010, six TAMU students from the Nuclear
Engineering department, including two NSSPI students, travelled to
Moscow, Russia for a 2-week long internship at the National
Research Nuclear University's Moscow Engineering Physics Institute
(MEPhI). The internship was part of the Joint U.S.-Russia
Educational Program on Advanced Energy Technologies, a
three-year-long collaboration with the University of Maryland
funded by the U.S. Department of Education, which focuses on
increasing interaction between U.S. universities and MEPhI through
workshops, student exchanges and facul...
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July 14, 2010
During the week of June 21-25, students and staff from NSSPI
(TAMU), the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (MEPhI), and
the Obninsk Institute for Nuclear Power Engineering (IATE) took
part in a Foreign Field Experience in the UK as part of the Russian
Academic Program in Nonproliferation and International Security
(RAP-NIS). The goal of the Foreign Field Experience is to foster
interaction between American and Russian students while they visit
nuclear sites and participate in discussions of nuclear
nonproliferation and safeguards.
The participants gave presentations on thei...
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June 21, 2010
NSSPI organized a meeting of the participants in the Russian
Academic Program in Nonproliferation and International Security
(RAP-NIS) at the Labor Spiez in Switzerland during the week of May
31, 2010 to discuss the past successes and future direction of the
program. RAP-NIS is a collaboration various international partners
to develop nuclear nonproliferation education programs in the U.S.
and Russia.
Representatives of NSSPI-TAMU included NSSPI director Dr. William
Charlton, NSSPI associate research engineer Claudio Gariazzo, and
Dr. Lee Peddicord, director of the Nuclear Power I...
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June 11, 2010
The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy has
listed the establishment of the Gulf Nuclear Energy Infrastructure
Institute (GNEII) and NSSPI's work with the Gulf States as number 5
in the list of the "Top 17 Science and Technology Activities" in
terms of "U.S. government science and technology engagement with
the muslim world" for the period of June 4, 2009 - June 4,
2010
According to the government fact sheet, GNEII "will work with Gulf
States through regional workshops and follow-up bilateral training
to assist those states that decide to pursue nuclear energy wi...
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April 12, 2010
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and the Nuclear Security
Science and Policy Institute (NSSPI) at Texas A&M University
are working with Middle East regional partners to set up a nuclear
energy safety, safeguards, and security educational institute in
the Gulf region. SNL and NSSPI, partnered with the Khalifa
University of Science, Technology, and Research (KUSTAR), with
suppot from its key nuclear stakeholders, the Emirates Nuclear
Energy Corporation (ENEC), and the Federal Authority for Nuclear
Regulation (FANR), plan to jointly establish the institute in Abu
Dhabi.
The Gu...
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January 4, 2010
From November 30th through December 4th, 2009, NSSPI and the
Department of Nuclear Engineering at TAMU hosted a group of
students from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI) and
the Tomsk Polytechnic Univerisity (TPU) currently working in the
United States as interns at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The students,
Dmitry Gerasimov, Andrey Zhukov, Leonid Khodalev, Olga Mikhaylova,
and Petr Mansurov, were able to tour the campus and sit in on
several graduate-level nuclear engineering classes and labs as part
of their e...
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November 16, 2009
The Texas A&M Department of Nuclear Engineering, in
conjunction with the Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute
(NSSPI), the Nuclear Power Institute (NPI), the Nuclear Science
Center (NSC), and the College of Engineering, hosted two visitors
from the National University of Malaysia the week of November 7,
2009. The visitors were Prof. Emeritus Dato' Dr. Noramly bin
Muslim, Professor and Chairman of Atomic Energy Licensing Board
(AELB), and Prof. Dr. Shahidan bin Radiman, Chairman of the School
of Applied Physics. The official purpose for the visit was to
discuss possible ...
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August 28, 2009
India's Nuclear Fuel Cycle, a book authored by
NSSPI affiliate Dr. Taraknath Woddi, NSSPI director Dr. William
Charlton, and NSSPI Associate Director for International Programs,
Dr. Paul Nelson, will be available to the public September 4, 2009.
The book is being published by Morgan and Claypool Publishers and
is an "analysis of the current . . . status and future potential of
India's nuclear fuel cycle."
...
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August 11, 2008
NSSPI is to help coordinate a U.S.-Russia Workshop with the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The title of the
workshop will be "The Next Generation of Advances in Safeguards and
Verification Technologies" and will take place at the Moscow
Engineering Physics Institute in Moscow, Russia December 15-16,
2008. This workshop involves commissioned papers by both U.S. and
Russian scientists exploring "transformational approaches" that may
provide technological means for enabling breakthroughs in
multilateral approaches to safeguarding the fuel cycle in
problematic emerging nucl...
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