From Jan. 6-10, faculty from the TEES Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (NSSPI) joined with Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) to lead a four-day workshop for Indian universities focused on advanced nuclear security topics on the campus of Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU) in Gadhinagar, Gujarat, India. Sponsored by PDPU and the Department of State’s Partnership for Nuclear Security (PNS), this workshop was a follow-up to a workshop on basic nuclear security topics conducted by NSSPI faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur (IIT-Kanpur) in August 2014.
The workshop consisted of lectures on a range of advanced nuclear security topics, covering both the technical and policy aspects of securing nuclear facilities from potential threats. It also included a number of tabletop exercises that actively engaged participants and challenged them to apply their newly-acquired knowledge to a series of real-world scenarios.
The 76 participants included faculty and students from various Indian universities that have existing nuclear science, technology, or engineering education programs, as well as participants from Indian industry. The universities represented were Amity Institute of Science and Technology (AIST), Delhi Technological University (DTU), IIT-Bombay, IIT-Kanpur, Jadavpur University, the University of Delhi, PDPU, and Mody University.
The U.S. team was led by Daniel Miller from PNS, and consisted of Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M and NSSPI faculty members Dr. Sunil Chirayath and Dr. Craig Marianno, Dr. Richard MacNamee of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M, and Dr. Matthew Sternat from SNL, who is also a NSSPI graduate. As part of PNS’s efforts to build capacity among Indian academics, Indian faculty who received previous PNS training provided nuclear security lectures alongside technical experts from Texas A&M and Sandia National Laboratories. The Indian university instructors for the workshop were G. Vaitheeswaran (PDPU), Vikram Rathore (PDPU), Dr. Nitin Puri (DTU), Archana Yadav (AIST), and Dr. Jagadeesan Velmurugan (Anna University).
The TEES Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute is a multidisciplinary organization at Texas A&M focusing on graduate education, research, and service related to the safeguarding of nuclear materials and the reduction of nuclear threats.