Claudio Gariazzo, a research engineer with NSSPI, traveled to Thailand to provide two lectures during the 13th ESARDA (European Safeguards Research and Development Association) course on Nuclear Safeguards and Non-Proliferation October 6th-10th 2014. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) of Ispra, Italy organized the course for Southeast Asian countries in partnership with the University of Chulalongkorn, Thailand.
Open to Master’s degree students in nuclear engineering, as well as young professionals and students in international relations and legal affairs, the basic aim of the course was to stimulate students’ interests in nuclear safeguards as a complement to nuclear engineering studies in the academic curriculum. The course addressed aspects of the efforts to create a global nuclear non-proliferation system and how this system works in practice. The Treaty on Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), safeguards technology, export control, and regional settings, such as the Euratom Treaty, were presented and discussed. The course dealt with technical aspects and application of safeguards in particular, teaching participants the basics of how to implement safeguards principles and methodology within different nuclear facilities and giving them an overview of inspection techniques (neutron / gamma detectors, to design information verification, to environmental sampling, etc.).
The course was hosted by the University of Chulalongkorn’s Faculty of Engineering and included 45 participants from the Philippines, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Cambodia, Vietnam, and India. Along with the JRC, a pool of internationally recognized lecturers from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Korean Institute of Nuclear Nonproliferation And Control (KINAC), the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Harvard University’s Kennedy School, and Texas A&M University presented various part of the syllabus. Gariazzo provided lectures on “Nuclear Material under Safeguards” and “Containment and Surveillance.”
