Group photo with NSDD-SET participants, Texas A&M students, and NSSPI faculty and staff at Disaster City.
In December 2023, the Center for Nuclear Security Science and Policy Initiatives (NSSPI) worked with leadership from the Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence (NSDD) Office in the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to conduct a series of hands-on challenges for NSDD science and engineering team (SET) staff from across the country. The purpose of SET is to advance the state-of-the-art in nuclear smuggling detection technology and support efforts to prevent the illicit trafficking of nuclear materials.
Texas A&M students and staff posed as train passengers who were questioned and screened by participants searching for concealed nuclear and radiological materials.
According to NSSPI Interim Director and co-organizer for the event Dr. Craig Marianno, “This event was an incredible experience for our students at Texas A&M to interact with staff from many different national laboratories and to use some of the very specialized equipment the team brought to Disaster City for the week.” Nuclear engineering students played numerous roles throughout the event, from leading some of the challenges and helping to plan the tasks to serving as actors meant to bring authenticity to the activities. In one challenge, NSSPI students and staff posed as train passengers who were questioned and screened by participants searching for concealed nuclear and radiological materials.
NSSPI student John Corder leads a challenge involving identifying potential threats from information received from radiation portal monitors.
NSSPI student Jordan Hillis leads a challenge to maneuver a robotic dog through an obstacle course.
Utilizing the unique facilities on the Texas Engineering Extension Agency’s Disaster City campus, the training event presented ten separate challenges over two days focused on applying SET tools, technology, and expertise to scenarios in the field. Participants included staff from seven national laboratories, including Brookhaven, Idaho, Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest, and Sandia National Laboratories.
The challenges gave NSDD-SET staff the opportunity to apply their tools, technology, and expertise to scenarios in the field.
Teams searched for radiological sources in the rubble pile tunnels at Disaster City.
NSSPI graduate student Jordan Hillis was actively involved in planning the event with NSSPI and NSDD staff. She also helped as a facilitator for a couple of the challenges. “Collaborating and learning from the NSDD is not an everyday opportunity for students,” she remarked, “The experience of watching the NSDD conduct exercises opened my eyes to even more opportunities within the nuclear security enterprise. It was rewarding to make connections and understand more applications that me and my peers can pursue for our future careers.”