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 and electrical engineering. To reciprocate the exchange, these students will travel to TAMU this summer to participate in practical hands-on laboratory training in nuclear security to support the material covered in the PDPU course.
This exchange is being conducted in conjunction with Sandia National Laboratories and the US Department of State within the framework of a Memorandum of Agreement between PDPU and TAMU that was finalized in January 2013. TAMU entities participating in the Program Agreement accompanying that MOA are the TAMU Department of Nuclear Engineering, the Nuclear Power Institute (NPI), and the NSSPI. In 2010, senior Ph.D. student Adam Hetzler gave a shorter series of similar lectures at PDPU, and in 2012 a group of two PDPU students along with Professor Shriram Paranjape, Chair of the PDPU Nuclear Energy department, visited NSSPI to receive hands-on laboratory experience in measurement techniques to support the security of nuclear materials.
James Miller is a Ph.D. student in the TAMU Department of Nuclear Engineering working with NSSPI Director Dr. William Charlton. His dissertation involves researching and monitoring levels of uranium and other heavy metals in radiation workers through experimental electrochemistry, work he performed during his internship with the Nuclear and Radiochemistry Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Photo, above: Miller with PDPU students and faculty members following a meeting of a student group at PDPU that has applied for recognition as a student chapter of the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management. From left to right: Mr. Vipin Shukla, Mr. Pankaj Pandey, Mr. Gaurav Kumar Singh, Mr. Vishwaroop, Mr. Miller, Professor Ravi Prasad (front), Mr. Vivek Maradia (back), Ms. Gunjan Indauliya, and Mr. Vijay Mehta.