Development of a Radiochemistry Courses using Combined Chemistry and Nuclear Engineering Expertise

Historically, radiochemistry expertise was developed and fostered though radiochemistry summer school and traditional university level educational programs. These programs, especially the summer school program, at one time contributed 50% of the chemistry Ph.Ds. in the nuclear and radiochemistry fields. The loss of undergraduate and graduate educational opportunities has resulted in a noted shortfall in technical expertise in the field. In an effort to address this issue, the National Nuclear Security Administration created the Radiochemistry Center of Excellence at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville to develop a stable educational pipeline for high- quality education in radiochemistry. The focus of this center is to develop a program/mechanism that facilitates research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to perform cutting-edge and multidisciplinary research in nuclear and radiochemistry. In addition to research, the center also has a focus to participate in the development of curricula for graduate and undergraduate students that spans a variety of disciplines, as there is significant overlap between the disciplines of nuclear chemistry, radiochemistry, nuclear engineering, and nuclear physics. Due to this overlap, this effort highlights the development of a new curriculum concept where the disciplines of radiochemical counting methods, particle physics, and computational modeling are combined.