UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE'S HUMAN RELIABILITY IN NUCLEAR SYSTEMS COURSE CLASS EXERCISE

At the 2014 55th INMM Annual meeting held in Atlanta, GA, the University of Tennessee presented the make-up and design of a Human Reliability course within the Nuclear Engineering Department’s (UTNE’s) graduate Nuclear Security Science and Analysis (NSSA) certificate program. The NSSA program is designed primarily for masters’ level technical students seeking specialization in nuclear security science and engineering by preparing the graduate students to engage in the research and development of new tools and processes related to nuclear security. As presented last year, this course is designed to deploy methodologies for understanding, assessing and managing human reliability factors with emphasis in identifying and minimizing the impact of human actions (accidental or deliberate) adverse to successful operation in nuclear systems, protection of information and nuclear materials security. In 2015, the course content has been redesigned to include a live and active exercise by the students to teach and reinforce elements of elicitation (pitch), behavioral observation, insider and covert information exchange (unusual behavior). The students were divided into four (4) teams; White Team (those who scripts and monitor/support the exercise including officiate/score the event), Red Team (In-Country Enemy), Orange Team (Out-of-country Enemy) and Blue Team (Allies). A criminal (espionage) “deaddrop” and “live-drop” was part of the assignment. This paper will describe the results of this exercise and lessons learned in conducting a university level exercise in human reliability.