Center for Nuclear Security Science and Policy Initiatives (NSSPI) Director and Associate Professor of nuclear engineering at Texas A&M University Dr. Sunil Chirayath has been named to the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) World Research Hub Initiative (WRHI) as a specially appointed associate professor. WRHI is part of the Institute of Innovative Research at Tokyo Tech, which comprises leading laboratories and research centers and aspires to “to accelerate international collaborative research and researcher mobility” through recruiting “top-level international researchers as specially-appointed professors or visiting scholars, facilitating interdisciplinary research and broadening the research scope of Tokyo Tech, enhancing its global profile.”
Through Chirayath’s appointment, WRHI hopes to combine the capabilities of NSSPI and the Tokyo Tech Laboratory for Advanced Nuclear Energy to advance work on Gen IV reactors, with particular attention to molten salt reactors. Chirayath will be in residence for three three-month periods over three years, during which he will work directly with other WRHI researchers on safeguards approaches, waste handling, criticality safety, and uncertainty quantification for molten salt reactors. Dr. Hiroshi Sagara, an associate professor at Tokyo Tech, will be his collaborative researcher for the project.
This appointment is the next step in a long history of collaboration between NSSPI and Tokyo Tech on Nuclear Safety, Security, and Safeguards (3S) research and education. NSSPI has hosted groups from Tokyo Tech for academic exchanges and exercises on radiation detection in emergency response situations and has provided internships for Tokyo Tech students working on their dissertations. Texas A&M students are frequently invited to participate in conferences, workshops, and other exchange activities at Tokyo Tech.
See announcement in WRHI news.