Nuclear Security Education: Teaching Nuclear Security Threat Analysis and Assessment To Nuclear Engineers

The Ken and Mary Alice Lindquist Department of Nuclear Engineering in the College of Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) offers a nuclear security option in its nuclear engineering master’s degree programs for resident students at University Park and distance students via Penn State World Campus. This unique nuclear security education program (NSEP) is designed to educate and train the next generation of nuclear security experts who can actively contribute to improving nuclear and radiological security around the world. In addition to nuclear engineering courses, Penn State’s NSEP includes five technical and policy-oriented courses covering threat, security system design, detector technologies, and global policies. The threat course, Nuclear Security Threat Analysis and Assessment (NucE 441), is also available as an elective for undergraduate students and provides an opportunity for nuclear engineering students to learn how the U.S. national security community analyzes threats, produces threat assessments, and develops responses to nuclear security threats in a dynamic, changing world. While the focus of NucE 441 is at the global and national levels, the course provides students with the ability to understand the motivations and capabilities of adversaries to characterize a Design Basis Threat (DBT) that can be used to perform threat-informed security system design and evaluation, which is explored in Nuclear Security System Design (NucE 442). This paper explains the course topics, materials, practical exercises, and assignments used to teach nuclear security threat and response to students who are mostly nuclear engineers with technical backgrounds. Improving communications between the different communities involved in nuclear security is a key theme of the course. Students gain an understanding of capabilities and intent with respect to nuclear terrorism and proliferation, learn how to become better consumers of threat information, and develop an appreciation for policymaking complexity and challenges such that they have a greater ability to communicate and collaborate across diverse communities to engineer solutions directly applicable to challenges, write better research proposals by including implications for national security, and perhaps even be inspired to consider additional career and education opportunities in nuclear security and national security.