TRAINING IN ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSES FOR SAFEGUARDS

Next Generation Safeguards Initiative, a new course, Training in Environmental Sample Analysis for IAEA Safeguards, is being offered as a summer internship opportunity at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The first students completed the 8 week program during the summer of 2008. Interns are given training in the analysis of bulk environmental samples for safeguards through hands-on experience working in a clean laboratory, purifying U and Pu from bulk environmental samples, and measuring U and Pu isotope ratios by multi-collector ICP mass spectrometry. A series of lectures by invited safeguards and non-proliferation experts gives the students a broad picture of the safeguards work of the IAEA. At the student poster symposium. Both undergraduate and graduate students are recruited and hired as paid interns under the aegis of the Glenn T. Seaborg Institute in the Physical and Life Sciences Directorate at LLNL. This training course seeks to introduce students to analytical and interpretive skill-sets that are not generally taught at universities, and to encourage them to pursue careers with the IAEA.