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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Apr 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
May 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
April 2025
Latest News
Waste Management 2025: Building a new era of nuclear
While attendance at the 2025 Waste Management Conference was noticeably down this year due to the ongoing federal retrenchment, the conference, held March 9-13 in Phoenix, Ariz., still drew a healthy and diverse crowd of people working on the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, both domestically and internationally.
Michael Pietrykowski, Mark R. Scott
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 199 | Number 1 | January 2025 | Pages 151-161
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2024.2344957
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Age dating a sample of nuclear material is a key part of predetonation technical nuclear forensics. As plutonium stockpiles age, they are more likely to require repurification and mixing to remove in-grown daughter products and maintain a consistent product. Existing age-dating techniques do not adequately address this problem. Four models were trained using machine learning techniques to determine (1) if a sample of weapons-grade plutonium had been repurified, (2) the elapsed time after repurification, and (3) the minimum and maximum elapsed times between repurification and its initial separation/purification/fabrication. The trained models predicted the repurification status with 99% accuracy, the age after repurification with a root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.34 years, and the minimum and maximum ages before repurification with RMSEs of 4.66 and 9.34 years, respectively. Age dating plutonium provides valuable insight into the country and possibly the facility of origin of the material, which is one tool to deter state-sponsored nuclear terrorism.