The Winter 2012 edition of the Journal of Nuclear Materials Management is a special issue featuring the work of students involved in the Russian Academic Program on Nonproliferation and International Security (RAP-NIS), a technical safeguards education collaboration between NSSPI, TAMU, and two premier Russian universities: the Russian National Research Nuclear University Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (NRNU-MEPhI) and the Obninsk State Technical University’s Institute of Nuclear Power Engineering (NRNU-IATE).
According to NSSPI research engineer Claudio Gariazzo in the technical editor’s note on the special issue, faculty and staff involved in RAP-NIS “have jointly developed courses in nuclear materials safeguards and nonproliferation issues and have guided student research projects in order to provide students the opportunity to apply their education. Among the three institutions, five masters of science programs have been created, fifty-two courses have been developed with more than 3800 students having taken the courses, and eighty students have graduated from the respective programs. Twenty-six directly sponsored theses/dissertations have been produced by graduates. In addition, students in the program are provided the opportunity to visit international nuclear fuel cycle facilities and discuss applied safeguards measures with facility operators, grow their personal professional networks with professionals from other countries, and expand their understanding and appreciation of safeguards culture.”
Gariazzo was instrumental in putting together the material that would eventually comprise the special issue. It contains four articles written by students who have graduated from the program and represents the quality of the work being done by its students both in the US and in Russia. There is an article by NRNU-MEPhI student Juliana Semenova, one from NRNU-MEPhI students Dina Chernikova and Anastasia Isakova, one by NRNU-IATE students Ivan Andryushin and Eugeny Varseev, and one by NSSPI student Travis Gitau. Some of these students have gone on to careers at the Kurchatov Institute of Russia, Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the US.
RAP-NIS is sponsored by the DOE/NNSA Offices of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation and Nonproliferation and International Security and managed by the University Research Alliance at West Texas A&M University.
The Journal of Nuclear Materials Management is a publication of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM), and the full edition of the special issue is available via their website.
- V.V. Kosterov, Y.V. Semenova, and V.V. Bolyatko, “Multi-attribute Evaluation and Choice of Alternatives for Surplus Weapons-grade Plutonium Disposition Using Utility Function at Functional Dependence of Weighting Factors,” JNMM 40(2) 2012.
- D. Chernikova, V. Romodanov, and A. Isakova, “Analysis of U-235, Pu-239, and Pu-241 Content in a Spent Fuel Assembly Using Lead Slowing Down Spectrometer and Time Intervals Matrix,” JNMM 40(2) 2012.
- E.T. Gitau and W.S. Charlton, ” Use of a Microsphere Fingerprint for Identity Verification of Fuel Pebbles in a Pebble-fueled HTGR,” JNMM 40(2) 2012.
- I.I. Andryushin, E.V. Varseev, and G.M. Pshakin, “Development of Analytical Instruments for Prediction if Nuclear Terrorist Activities,” JNMM 40(2) 2012.
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