INMM-Texas A&M Student Chapter: Pebble Bed and TRISO-Fueled Reactors Nonproliferation Workshop
February 3-6, 2025
Zachry Engineering Education Complex
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX, USA
Workshop Program (pdf) Workshop Logistics
Monday, February 3, 2024
12:00pm – 6:00pm | Workshop Registration and Badge Pickup
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297 and Atrium
6:00pm – 9:00pm | Opening Reception with Keynote Speakers
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 299 and Atrium
- Workshop Welcome: Dr. Mansung Yim, Director of the Center for Nuclear Security Science and Policy Initiatives (NSSPI)
- Keynote Speaker: Dr. K.L. Peddicord, Senior Professor and Professor Emeritus, Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University
- Keynote Speaker: Dr. Warren “Pete” Miller, former Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at the U. S. Department of Energy and Professor of Practice, Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University
Tuesday, February 4, 2024
8:30am – 10:00am | Opening Plenary
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
- Texas A&M University/INMM Welcome and Introductions
- Ms. Christine Mathew, INMM Student Chapter President
- Ms. Evelyn Mullen, Special Advisor to the Texas A&M Vice Chancellor for Research, National Laboratories Office, Texas A&M University System
- Dr. Mansung Yim, Director of the Center for Nuclear Security Science and Policy Initiatives (NSSPI)
- Dr. Karen Kirkland, Associate Department Head, Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University
- Mr. Mark Schanfein, Senior Nonproliferation Advisor at Idaho National Laboratory and Immediate Past-President of INMM
- Mr. Thomas DeGuire, Workshop Chair
- Keynote Speaker: Dr. Jeremy Whitlock, Former Senior Technical Advisor in the Department of Safeguards of the IAEA, “Non-proliferation Aspects of HTGR TRISO-Fuelled Reactors”
10:00am – 10:20am | Coffee Break
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 298
10:20am – 11:20am | Material Control & Accounting, part 1
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
- Mr. Donald Kovacic (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), “Nuclear Material Control & Accounting for Pebble Bed Reactors”
- Dr. Tomi Akindele (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), “Advancing Measurement Tools for Pebble Bed Reactors”
11:20 – 12:30 | Lunch break
12:30pm – 2:30pm | Assay Techniques, part 1
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
- Dr. Emily Paige Abel (Idaho National Laboratory), “Measurement of TRISO Fuel at the Analytical Research Laboratory with Microcalorimetry”
- Dr. Stefania Dede (Los Alamos National Laboratory), “NDA Characterization of TRISO Burnup”
- Dr. Jianwei Hu (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), “Gamma Spectrometry Measurements of Irradiated TRISO Fuel”
- Dr. Carlos Soto (Brookhaven National Laboratory), “Determining Fuel Burnup in Pebble Bed Reactors with Machine Learning”
2:30pm – 3:00pm | Coffee Break
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 298
3:00pm – 5:00pm | Modeling and Simulation, part 1
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
- Dr. Ramon Pulido (Sandia National Laboratories), “TRISO Fuel Fabrication Safeguards Modeling for Statistical Evaluation of Material Control & Accounting Measurement Technologies”
- Mr. Liam Carlson (Texas A&M University), “The Current State of High-Fidelity PBR Neutronics Modelling”
- Mr. Arif Rangon (Texas A&M University), “High-Fidelity PBR Depletion Calculation in Griffin using Artificial Neural Network”
- Dr. Arantxa Cuadra (Brookhaven National Laboratory), “Design of a New Transmutation Data Repository”
5:00pm – 5:45pm | IAEA Perspective
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
- Dr. Alexis Trahan (IAEA), “Preparing to Safeguard Pebble Bed and TRISO-Fueled Reactors”
7:00pm | Optional Social at the Dixie Chicken (a Texas A&M tradition!)
- Join the group for snacks and drinks at the oldest bar on Northgate!
Wednesday, February 5, 2024
8:30am to 10:30am | Physical Protection and Security
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
- Dr. Ben Cipiti (Sandia National Laboratories), “Gen-IV Proliferation Resistance and Physical Protection Aspects of Very High Temperature Reactors”
- Mr. Alan Evans (Sandia National Laboratories), “Pebble Bed Reactor Analysis: Theft and Sabotage”
- Dr. Lee Maccarone (Sandia National Laboratories), “Cybersecurity-by-Design for Advanced Reactors: Research Efforts for High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors”
- Mr. Ali Alkis (NATO Defense College), “Challenges and Safeguards for Pebble Bed Modular Reactors”
10:30am – 11:00am | Coffee Break
Location: Zachry Atrium
11:00am – 12:00pm | Modeling and Simulation, part 2
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
- Dr. Ryan Stewart (Idaho National Laboratory), “The General Pebble Bed Reactor: Applications of high-fidelity modeling for proliferation resistance”
- Dr. Dany Mulyana (Indonesian Research and Innovation Agency), “A non-proliferation study of a typical pebble bed reactor”
12:00pm – 1:00pm | Lunch Break
1:00pm – 2:30pm | Assay Techniques, part 2
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
- Dr. Tashiema Ulrich (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), “Evaluation of Gamma Imaging for TRISO Fuel Fabrication Manufacturing Holdup Monitoring”
- Dr. Ruth Kips (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), “Expanding our understanding of nuclear forensic signatures in Advanced Reactor Fuels”
- Mr. Austen Ocanas (Texas A&M University), “Assessment of self-interrogation safeguards signatures for pebble bed reactor fuel”
2:30pm – 3:00pm | Q&A Panel
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
3:00pm – 5:00pm | Optional Facilities Tours: Center for Advanced, Small, and Micro Reactors (CASMR) – NuScale Simulator and experimental SMR facilities
Thursday, February 6, 2024
8:30am – 9:30am | Fuel Cycle Considerations
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
- Dr. Tomi Akindele (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), “NNSA’s Proliferation Resistance Optimization Program for Advanced Reactors and their Fuel Cycles”
- Ms. Sylvia Saltzstein (Sandia National Laboratories), “Sandia Holistic Advanced Reactor Capabilities Center (SHARCC) for Pebble Bed Reactors”
9:30am – 10:00am | Coffee Break
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 298
10:00am – 11:30am | Material Control & Accounting, part 2
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
- Ms. Margaret Ellenson (Kairos Power), “Kairos Power Domestic Advanced Reactor Safeguards Strategies”
- Dr. Claudio Gariazzo (Argonne National Laboratory), “Eddy Current Inspection of Graphite Pebbles for Pebble Bed Reactors”
- Dr. Ming Fang (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), “Identification of TRISO-Fueled Pebble Based on Neutron Multiplicity Counting and X-Ray CT”
11:30pm – 12:00pm | TRISO Facilities
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
- Mr. Zach Lemke (Los Alamos National Laboratory), “Deimos: A Benchmarked Critical Experiment to Support Advanced Reactors using HALEU TRISO Fuel”
12:00pm – 1:00pm | Closing session with Keynote Speakers
Location: Zachry Chevron Room 297
- Keynote Speaker: Ms. Laura Rockwood, Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (VCNDP) and INMM Vice President