Seven professors from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute in the Ukraine spent the week of June 20-24 at the TEES Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (NSSPI) as part of their Nuclear Security Education Summer Tour. The Summer Tour was sponsored by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Office of Global Material Security and hosted by NSSPI and Sandia National Laboratories. The purpose of the tour was to give the participants a foundation in nuclear security and provide them with instructional materials and pedagogical knowledge in the area. The group was accompanied by Adam Williams of Sandia, the program lead, and Emily Eng of NNSA.
While at Texas A&M, the group reviewed the nuclear security curriculum developed by NSSPI for the Texas A&M Department of Nuclear Engineering. They toured the supporting teaching and research laboratories and learned about ongoing research activities at NSSPI. They also visited the TEES Nuclear Science Center and the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Agency’s Disaster City Facility.
After their initial week at Texas A&M, the group traveled to Sandia in Albuquerque, New Mexico to participate in three weeks of discussions with subject matter experts on various topics related to nuclear security. At the end of the tour, the KPI faculty presented a course schedule for a Master’s of Science degree in nuclear engineering with a specialization in nuclear security. NSSPI, Sandia, and KPI will continue to work together in developing courses for the new M.S. degree as well as establishing an academic nuclear security research program at KPI.
NSSPI Research Engineer Claudio Gariazzo, who organized and led the Texas A&M portion of the tour, said, “NSSPI has a long-standing reputation for being an innovative world leader in nuclear security education. As our recognition grows, academic institutions with established nuclear engineering departments are reaching out to us to learn how we have incorporated our nuclear security curriculum into Texas A&M University’s stellar graduate education in nuclear engineering. In collaborating with other leading universities like KPI we openly make our experts and materials available to others for the benefit of advancing the global nuclear security culture. And we’re happy to do so again and again.”
