Issue date: 6/5/06 Section: News

Stuart Porter - The Battalion The Nuclear Science Center at Texas A&M University.

The House of Representatives has approved $1.6 million in funding for a new nuclear terrorism prevention program at Texas A&M that will allow students to research and study in the field of nuclear security.

The Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (NSSPI) is a joint project with A&M and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station. The educational component is a cooperative effort between the Dwight Look College of Engineering and the Bush School of Government and Public Policy.

The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents approved the NSSPI March 24.

The NSSPI will focus on graduate education, research and services related to the security of nuclear materials and nonproliferation, said Bill Charlton, director of NSSPI.

"Texas A&M has already been doing projects in these areas, but is usually isolated by its individual departments," Charlton said. "One department would be doing a research project that related to another project in another department. NSSPI is a way to collect these efforts together - to fuel multi-department cooperation on these important projects."

NSSPI will offer a Master of Science degree in Nuclear Non-Proliferation as a part of the department of nuclear engineering, as well as research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Charlton said.

G. Kemble Bennett, vice chancellor and dean of engineering, offered examples of the research projects NSSPI will undertake.

"In collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory, we have a program involving analysis of nuclear terrorism pathways," Bennett said. "The student is developing intelligence analysis tools for determining the most likely routes a terrorist organization might take to produce, acquire and use a nuclear weapon."

NSSPI will work closely with the DOE Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, the DOE National Laboratory complex, the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, Bennett said.

Another mission of the NSSPI is redirecting foreign nuclear scientists into peaceful uses of nuclear energy, Bennett said.

"NSSPI will help develop technologies that will deter other nations from developing nuclear weapons programs, as well as help disseminate information on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy," Bennett said. "For example, NSSPI faculty, staff and students have already worked to help re-engage former weapons scientists from Libya toward peaceful research projects."

The new program will be one-of-a-kind and will combine the science of nuclear technology with government policies to monitor it, Bennett said.

Such technology will have public policy implications; for instance, advanced nuclear detectors would shore up international law by adding credibility and enforceability to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Charlton said. The international community will be able to tell with a degree of certainty that a country is developing nuclear weapons, he said.

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, R-Texas, believes the new program will open doors to important areas for the University, his spokesman Josh Taylor said.

"This will turn A&M into one of the finest research institutions in the important field of nuclear security," Taylor said. "Aggies will be working directly with the DOE on research that will improve our homeland security. The next generation of nuclear engineers in the DOE will be Aggies because of this cooperation."

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