Education and Training in Radiochemistry – The NAMP Initiative

In 2009, the nuclear industry employed approximately 120,000 people. Nearly 38 percent of the nuclear industry force will be eligible to retire within the next five years. To maintain the current work force, the industry will need to hire approximately 25,000 more workers by 2015. Given that the current radiochemistry workforce is approaching the age for retirement and that a limited number of US universities provide experience with radiochemistry, the United States is faced with a growing demand for the education and training of scientists in the radiochemistry arena. Furthermore, it is critical that the US maintains global leadership in the next generation of safe nuclear energy technology from both a national security and environmental perspective. This will require a robust program that focuses entirely on educating and training the next generation of radiochemists in subjects such as 1- radioanalysis of actinides and radioelements not only in the environment but in medium pertinent to the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, 2- speciation of radionuclides, 3- detection methods, 4- safeguards etc… Therefore, the National Analytical Management Program (NAMP) has organized a subcommittee focusing on training and education in radiochemistry. Through the efforts of this subcommittee, NAMP has established collaborative associations to foster the exchange of scientific and technical information with professors in radiochemistry programs at different universities. This paper will present our accomplishments and the development of a curriculum for an intermediate radiochemistry course in cooperation with the EPA. These short (2-hour) webinar presentations on specific radiochemistry topics have been developed and will be presented. The webinars are recorded and will become a library or collection of information for on-line access from the NAMP website