Dr. William Charlton is stepping down as the director of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (NSSPI) to join the National Strategic Research Institute (NSRI) at the University of Nebraska as their first Research Director. The NSRI is the only university-affiliated research center in the country dedicated to delivering solutions for combating weapons of mass destruction to U.S. Strategic Command and across other federal agencies. NSRI provides research and development for the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and other governmental agencies in multiple mission-critical competency areas – including development of medical countermeasures to WMD; nuclear detection and forensics; consequence management; chemical and biological weapons detection; and space, cyber, and telecom law.
Charlton has served as the director of NSSPI since the institute’s inception in March of 2006 and originated the idea of forming a university organization at Texas A&M University to introduce graduate-level technical education in nuclear security and safeguards. Charlton earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in nuclear engineering from Texas A&M, and has been a faculty member in the Texas A&M Department of Nuclear Engineering since 2003.
TEES has appointed longtime NSSPI faculty member Dr. Sunil Chirayath as the interim director of NSSPI. Chirayath has worked as a NSSPI researcher and Department of Nuclear Engineering visiting professor since 2007 and is an associate director of NSSPI.
