Nuclear forensicsNuclear forensics summer program trains students for a future in nuclear security

Published 26 August 2016

A sure sign of summer is the return of interns to the Lawrence Livermore campus. Students interact with premier researchers and access equipment and facilities not available anywhere else, while scientists lay groundwork for advancing their fields. LLNL runs an eight-week summer internship for students interested in nuclear science and its range of specialties — nuclear forensics, environmental radiochemistry, nuclear physics, and beyond. Together, these disciplines support the laboratory’s nuclear security mission through analysis of nuclear processes and properties.

A sure sign of summer is the return of interns to the Lawrence Livermore campus. Students interact with premier researchers and access equipment and facilities not available anywhere else, while scientists lay groundwork for advancing their fields. Within the Physical and Life Sciences directorate, the Glenn T. Seaborg Institute runs an eight-week summer internship for students interested in nuclear science and its range of specialties — nuclear forensics, environmental radiochemistry, nuclear physics, and beyond. LLNL notes that together, these disciplines support the Laboratory’s nuclear security mission through analysis of nuclear processes and properties.

Founded in 1999 as the Actinide Sciences Summer Program, LLNL’s Nuclear Forensics Summer Program is currently funded by the National Technical Nuclear Forensics Center within the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. Seaborg Institute Director Mavrik Zavarin oversees the program and the 2016 class of thirteen students. The summer program aims to train the next generation of nuclear scientists and engineers in areas critical to DHS and the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The 2016 class includes Katie Hoffman, a fourth-year Ph.D. student at the University of Cincinnati. Her Ph.D. adviser previously sent two students to the summer program and encouraged her to apply. This was Hoffman’s second year at LLNL, and the experience of working alongside the same mentor on the same project for consecutive summers helped shape her dissertation on radioanalytical chemistry.

Livermore connections also compelled Austin Carter to pursue the summer program. This fall he begins graduate study in nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan. Last summer he interned in LLNL’s Global Security directorate, where he met radiochemist Narek Gharibyan, who ended up mentoring Carter in the 2016 summer program.

The real deal
The Seaborg Institute’s summer program offers more than experience for its own sake. As Zavarin explains, “It’s a unique opportunity. Students team up with a principal investigator doing research with national security implications.”

Hoffman assisted researcher Ruth Kips in testing soil samples from the Marshall Islands, a site of cold war nuclear testing. Their research explores how soil absorbs the cesium-137 isotope, giving scientists insight into how radioactive elements move through contaminated material. With real-world impacts to radioactive environments, Hoffman acknowledges the summer program’s high expectations: “There’s pressure to do it right.”